Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICS IN FREUD AND DERRIDA
Todd, Jane Marie ProQuest Dissertations and Theses; 1983; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) pg. n/a INFORMATION TO USERS This reproduction was made from a copy of a document sent to us for microftlming. While the most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this document, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help clarify markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. L The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark, it is an indication of either blurred copy beC8lJse of movement during exposure, duplicate copy, or copyrighted materials that should not have been fllmed. For blurred pages, a good image of the page can be found in the adjacent frame. If copyrighted materials were deleted, a target note will appear listing the pages in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., is part of the material being photographed, a defInite method of "sectioning" the material has been followed. It is customary to begin filming at the upper left hand comer of a large sheet and to continue from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. If necessary. sectioning is cO.'1tinued again-beginning below the frrst row and continuing on until complete. 4. For illustrations t i ~ t cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by xerographic means, photographic x>rints can be purchased at additional cost and inserted into your xerographic copy. These prints are available upon request from the Dissertations Customer Services Department. S. Some pages in any document may have indistinct print. In all cases the best available copy has been filmed. University MicrOfilms IriemationaI 300N,ZssbRoad Ann Arbor, MI 48106 ( Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8408198 Todd, Jane Marie AUTOBIOGRAPHies IN FREUD AND DERRIDA University of Oregon University Microfilms International '(lO N.".", Ro,d. Aon Am". MI48106 Copyright 1983 by Todd, Jane Marie All Rights Reserved PH.D. 1983 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. AUTOBIOGRAPHICS IN FREUD AND DERRIDA by JANE MARIE TonD A DISSERTATION Presented to the Comparative Literature Program. and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for ~ h degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 1983 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVED: Steven F. Rendall Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iii Jane Harie Todd 1983 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv An Abstract of the Dissertation of Jane Marie Todd for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Comparative Literature Program to be taken December 1983 Title: AUTOBIOGRAPHIeS IN FREUD AND DERRIDA Approved: ~ f l ~ Steven F. Rendall This dissertation approaches the problem of autobiography from two directions: first, it assesses the impact of the theories of self, consciousness, and language developed by Freud and Derrida on the assumptions of autobiography criticism; second, through the reading vf the autobiographical aspects of their writings, it links autobiography to academic institutions and intellectual mo.vements. My aim is to articulate the project of autobiography with a field of psychic phenomena that Freud uncovered: obsessions, hysterical symptoms, the repetition compulsion, etc. Each of these phenomena is the repetition of a life experience with the intent of mastering it and assigning it a meaning. Writing an autobiography not only fulfills the same purpose, it may often be a manifestation of these phenomena. The purpose of the "talking cure" is to convert neurotic behavior into language, to aid the patient in initiating a discourse about his symptoms in order to be freed of them. My first chapter traces this task of autobiographies in two of Freud I s case histories, and also points to its limits, finding in the form of Freud's text the remnants of the symptoms he analyzes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The second chapter turns to consider Freud I s autobiographical project in his ground-breaking scientific text, The Interpretation of Dreams. If autobiography involves the shaping of a fictioni1.l self, how does the image of himself that Freud projects affect the sciehce he founds and the legends that have arisen about him? The third chapter attempts to span the generations that separate Freud and Derrida. From a discussion of his theories of the self and the sign, autobiography surfaces as the repetition, not only of an individual unconscious, but of a philosophical heritage transmitted through langu?ge. This raises the question of Derrida's position within that heritage. The fourth and fifth chapters explore the double role that autobiography plays in Derrida, both as the expression of a desire (inherited from philosophy) and as an attempt at self-criticism. As Derrida repeats Freud even as he criticizes him, he reveals his own position in an institutional structure and suggests an analogy b.:!tween the psychoanalytic movement and the increasingly influential philosophy of deconstruction. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA NAME OF AUTHOR: ' Jane Marie Todd PLACE OF BIRTH: San Francisco. California DATE OF BIRTH: April 20, 1957 UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE SCHOOL ATTENDED: Linfield College University of Oregon DEGREES AWARDED: Bachelor of Arts, 1977, Linfield College Master of Arts, 1979, University of Oregon Master of Arts, 1981, University of Oregon AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Literary Theory Psychoanalysis and Literature Autobiogra1Jhy PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Romance Languages, University of Oregon, Eugene, 1977-83 Instructor, Department of French and Italian, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 193-84 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PUBLICATIONS: Book Review of Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud, forthcoming forthcoming in Philosopby and Literature. Ulncrease and Multiply: Interpretation in St. Augustine's Confessions, II presented to the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, November 1983. IlMontaigne's Enfant Monstrueux," presented to the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, November 1982. vii Translations ?f Raoul Becollsse, Le Temps Proviso ire (selections), Ten Point Five, Spring 1979. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION....... II. AUTOBIOGRAPHICS AS CURE: TWO CASE HISTORIES. Obsession and Narrative Line .... . Journey, Analysis, Narrative .. . Fragments of Dora/Fragments of Freud. III. TIlE GENEALOGY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS . . . . Page 10 10 32 59 Screen(ed) Memorie.s . . . . . . . . 60 The Interpretation of Dreams as Hork of Mourning. 79 IV. THE SELF AND THE SIGN V. AUTOBIOGRAPHICS AS RESTE: DERRIDA IS GUS . "Thanatoxpraxie ll
Signatures. . . . .. . .. VI. THE O R T f ~ OF AUTOBIOGRAPIfY. 131 164 169 201 235 The Legacy of Beyond the Pleasure Principle 240 The Literary Framework. 285 VII.. CONCLUSION. 314 APPENDIX. 317 NOTES ... 31B BIBLIOGRAPIfY 329 viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure II LIST OF FIGURES The Rat Man I s Journey <Standard Edition) The Rat Man's Journey (Original Map) .. ix Page 18 18 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "Autobiographies in Freud and Derrlda" approaches the problem of autobiography from two directions: first, it assesses the impact of the theories of self, consciousness, and language developed by Freud and Derrida on the assumptions of autobiography criticism; second, through the reading of the autobiographical aspects of their writings, it introduces a problematic that links autobiography to academic institutions and intellectual movements. My aim is not to define autobiography, to distinguish it from related genres nor to place it within a particular discipline or domain (literature, for example); rather, I wish to articulate the general problem.of autobiography --making sense of a life by means of representation or repetition- with a field of psychic. phenomena that Freud discovered in his treatment of neurotics: screen memories, the work of obsessions, hyster- ical symptoms, the repetition compulsion, transference. Each of these diverse phenomena is the repetition of a life experience (generally a trauma or a loss) with the intent (not necessarily, or even usually, consci.ous) of mastering that experience and of assigning it a meaning. The writing of an autobiography, I shall argue, not only fulfills the same purpose, but may often be a manifestation of these phenomena. Thus, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams is not simply like a work of mourning, but is actually part of the work of mourning undertaken after Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his father's death. I call this general field lIautobiographics," both to insist upon its relation to autobiography as we know it, and to stress that these psychic phenomena comprise a "language, II a semiotic system that can be translated and interpreted .. Avrom Fleishman has raised an objection to a similar project that views persistent themes and metaphors within an author's corpus as "obsessions," arguing that the autobiographer's act of repetition .... differs in kind from obsession. An obsessive is bound to repeat, often reenacting as well as returning to the past in language and thought. An autobiographer may be an obsessive but insofar as he turns to autobiographical writing, he bas shifted from direct reenactment (including acts of speech) to the language of review, revision, and representation. Such repetition is never simply the same again but will inevitably generate novel f43a1;111:'es: the same anew. l The textual analyses that follow may be taken as a response to this objection, which attempts to distinguish between two of repeti- tion, a good, controlled repetition and a bad, compulsively driven one. 2 I take as my premise Derrida's claim that writing is not an activity undertaken by a self-conscious subject and guided by his intentions, but the repetition of an already-constituted language within which the subj ect must take his place. Writing is a "reenactment" or an acting out because the subject "BlUst assume a role over which he has limited control. Autobiography cannot entail the absolute se1- consciousness that would make it "differ in kind" from obsession; it is, at best, a difference in degree and, at times, no difference at all. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. My first chapter, focusing on two of Freud's case histories, addresses this very question. For the purpose of psychoanalysis, "the talking cure," is precisely to convert obsessional or hysterical behavior into language; that is, it is an effort to make the patient aware of the meaning of his symptoms, to make him capable of initiating a discourse about them, in order to be freed of them. The first chapter traces this task of translation, but also points to its limits, finding in the form of Freud's text the traces and remnants of the symptoms he analyzes. The second chapter turns to consider Freud r s own autobiographical project in The Interpretation of Dreams. The impact of Freud's life and personality on the birth and develo?ment of psychoanalysis has in fact long been a matter of interest and investigation. The first volume of Ernest Jones I massive biography is only the best-known of a number of studies that find in Freud's childhood experiences the seeds of his later greatness, and locate the origin of psychoanalysis in the self-analysis that Freud undertook following the death of his father. 3 Such studies stress the courage and heroism with which Freud was endowed, raising the father of ,psychoanalysis to the stature of a legendary figure. More recent studies have focused not on the elements that made Freud a willing researcher, the new Oedipus who did not flinch at uncovering the secrets of the unconscious, but on the limits that Freud's psyche placed on this enterprise. Thus, Marie Balmary's provocative L 'Homme aux Statues: Freud et 1a faute cachee du pere Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. speculates that Freud's unconscious knowledge of his father's sexual "sins n led him to repress his discovery concerning the etiology of hysteria. 4 A number of important contributions have come from feminists, who recognize that a science founded on the self-analysis of a man can only represent women as the mirror or speculum by means of which men constitute themselves, and can reveal little about the particular area of female subjectivity and sexuality. 5 The fact that much of the -material about Freud's childhood is drawn from his ground-breaking scientific text, The Interpretation of Dreams, has received scant attention. Do the many autobiographical anecdotes and confessions found there qualify that text as an auto- biography? It is a commonplace of literary criticism that an autobiography is not simply the record of empirical "facts" about the author but the shaping of a fictional self. 6 If this is true of Interpretation of Dreams as well, how does the image of himself that Freud projects affect the science he founds and the myths and legends that have arisen about him? The third chapter attempts to span the generations that separate Freud and Derrida. It focuses on several intellectual movements that have influenced Derrida' s thinking on the questions of the self and the sign: Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, J. L. Austin's speech act theory, and the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and Claude Levi-Strauss. From this discussion, a notion of autobiography arises as the repetition, not only of an individual unconscious, but of a philosophical heritage transmitted through language. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This, of course, raises the question of Derrida I s own position within that heritage and of the function of the autobiographical features of his writings. The fourth chapter explores the double role that autobiography plays in Derrida, both as the expression of a desire (inherited from philosophy) and as an attempt at self-criticism. At the same time, it traces Derrida's debt to Freud and places him within the genealogy of psychoanalysis. The final chapter assesses Derrida' s attempt to come to terms with his debt to Freud (and to philosophy in general). "Speculer--sur 'Freud'" is a theoretical discussion of the problem of autobiography in relation to Freud and the psychoanalytical movement: it is not only written from "within" that movement, but is also supplemented by Derrida I s autobiographical "Envois. II As Derrida repeats Freud even as he criticizes him, he reveals his own position in an institutional structure and suggests an analogy between the psychoanalytic movement and the increasingly influential philosophy of deconstruction. In what have been called his II seemingly self-indulgent autobiographical ruminations,"7 Derrida presents autobiography as a social and institutional concern. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II AUTOBIOGRAPHIeS AS CORE: TWO CASE HISTORIESl The Scene of Analysis. The hysterical body is a text n d ~ in fact, an autobiographical text. Every symptom tells a story about the pat:l..ent' slife, or rather several stories, since it :l..s in the nature of the hysterical symptom. to be overdetermined. That is, the hysterical symptom represents a repressed thought or thoughts relating to traumatic events in the hysteric's life. And although the body's language is entirely secret, it nevertheless complies with the rules of this particular form of expression, finding expression in a small number of somatic signifiers. Freud notes that his hysterical patient Dora exhibits nthe commonest of all somatic and mental symptoms" and he chooses this patient for a case history because "what 1s wanted is precisely an elucidation of the ~ cases and of their most frequent and typical symptoms" (VII, 23-24).2 This is not to say, however, that these typical symptoms always point to the ~ thoughts in every case of hysteria. On the contrary, lithe determination of Dora's symptoms is far too specific for it to be possible to expect a frequent recurrence of the same accidental aetiology" (VII, 40). Rather Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the hysterical symptom does not carry [its] meaning with it, but the meaning is lent to it, soldered to it, as it were; and in every instance the meaning can be a dHferent'me, accordi:ngto the nature of the suppressed thoughts which are struggling for expression (VII, 40-41). Thus, the body-text remains unreadable, even to the patient, who cannot interpret the symptom but only suffer it. The other, properly linguistic text, the "lrerbal account that the hysteric gives of her life, is characteristically fragmented, incoherent. She comes to the psychoana1yst unable to make sense of her life. It is the task of the psychoanalyst to work with the patient, to collaborate on a translation of this secret and motivated language of the body into the conventional language of words. Freud writes that the somatic symptom can only occur more than once if lIit has a psychical significance, a meaning. II This capacity for repeating itself, Freud adds, "is one of the characteristics of a hysterical symptom" (VII, 40). The hysterical body is, then, an iterable, signifying text and "the clearing-up of the symptoms is achieved by looking for their psychical significance" (VII, 41), by conv8!:ting the symptoms into language. In the same way, an obsession is also an autobiographical text, "only a dialect of the language of hysteria ll (X, 157), though one that is not expressed in the form of "hysterical conversion," the conversion of body into a text of signifying sY'lll'toms. The verbal form of an obsession is also marked with lIa peculiar indeterminateness," as Freud puts it. It is only in the course of the collaboration with the analyst that an expliCit formulation of the compulsion can be made. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. When the sense of an obsession or of a hysterical is brought out, the symptom disappears. Freud calls this collaboration, this task of translation, "analysis." "Analysis" is the name given to an autobiographical practice whose principal purpose is not to testify (to bear witness to injustice or to record the thinking of an age), nor to confess (one's sins or one's devotion), though both modes may be part of an analysis. The work of analysis is auto- biographics Freud himself remarks on this fact in oue of his earliest texts, Studies in Hysteria: I have not always been a psychotherapist. Like other neuropatholog1sts, I was trained to employ local diagnoses and electro-prognosis, and it still strikes me myself as strauge that the case histories I write should read like short stories and that, as one might say, they lack the serious stamp of science. I must console myself with the reflection that the nature of the subject is evidently responsible for thiS, rather than any preference of my own. The fact is that local diagnosis and electrical reactions lead nowhere in the study of hysteria, whereas a detailed description of mental processes such as we are accustomed to find in the works of imaginative writers enables me, with the use of a few psychological fornrulas, to obtain at least some kind of insight into the course of that affection. Case histories of this kind are intended to be judged like psychiatric ones; they have, however, one advantage over the latter, namely an intimate connection between the stOry of the patient I s sufferings and the symptoms of his illness --a connection for which we still search in vain in the biographies of other psychoses (II, 160-61, emphasis added). The remark COIDeS in the form of a protest: I am a scientist by training. As one who is not a writer (Dichter), I can only be surprised, indeed, dismayed (for I must "console myself") that my case histories read like short stories. This is not my own dOing, and I am not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "respons:Lble": it is in the nature of hysteria that the cure comes, not through IIlocal diagnosis" nor through "e!ectro-prognosis," but by bringing the patient to an tmderstanding of her life, of her life .!!. short story. Aesthetics, and more exactly, the aesthetics of auto- biography, comes to serve the interest of medicine. In the pages that follow I I shall examine the scene of analysis, this operation of making sense, of translating symptom. or compulsion into sign. I call this operation "autobiographies, II though autobiographies is not limited to the scene of analysis. It is the act of forming a self with language, the production rather than the representation of a self {Arbeit as well as ~ the writing of a self that is constituted by writing. My task does not end there. For Freud's case histories are not merely the faithful representation of an analysis. They are themselves texts, and texts that repeat, in a curious way, the very problems of the analysis. They raise again, but in reference to Freud this time, the questions of aesthetics, of narrative, of audience, of memory, and of identity. This notion, which Derrida calls "1' autobiographie de l'ecriture, ,,3 suggests that the writing of a case history is also an analysis, or, rather, that both case history and analysis form a part of the larger domain of autobiographies. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Obsession and Narrative Line Journey, Analysis, Narrative "In quite a number of cases, II writes Freud in "The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexual! ty in a Woman," an analysis falls into two clearly distinguishable phases When this is so, one may bring up as an analogy the two stages of a journey. The first.comprises all the necessary preparations, to-Jay so complicated and hard to effect, before, ticket in band, one can at last go on to the platform and secure a seat in the train. One then has the right, and the possibility, of travelllng into a distant country; but after all these preliminary exertions one is not yet there -indeed, one is not a single mile nearer to one I s goal. FOI' this ;:to happen one has to make the journey itself from. one station to the other, and this part of the performance tnay well be compared with the second phase of the analysis (XVIII. 152). In the first phase, the ''preliminary exertionsy " the analyst procures from the patient the necessary information, makes him familiar with the premises and postulates of psycho- analysis, and unfolds to him the reconstruction of the genesis of his disorder as deduced from the material brought up in the analysis (XVIII, 152). 10 In the second stage, the journey proper, it is the patient himself who gets hold of the material put before him works on it, recollects what he can of the apparently repressed memories, end tries to repeat the rest as if he were in some way living it over again. It is only during this work that be acquires for himself the convictions that make him independent of the physician's authority (XVIII, 152). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 It is only in this second phase that the patient takes on an active role, beccm;tes, in effect, the author of his own life and so escapes the authority or authorship of the analyst. But this second stage, the journey from one station to another, is not as direct as Freud's metaphor would suggest. As we shall see, the journey contains a number of detours, so many, in fact, that they thnaten to obscure the progress of the journey itself. ''Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis, II the case of the Rat Man, 1s the record of such an analysis, one that falls into two distinct parts. Freud's case history is the plotting (in more ways than one) of tMs journey_ But it is also the analysis of another journey, the obsessional journey that the Rat Man feels obliged to take despite its apparent senselessness, and a journey that eventually leads to Vienna and the analytic session. We have, then, both the analysis of a journey (for Freud's goal is to discover the significance of the compulsion) and the journey of n l y s i s ~ The analytic journey is then replicated in the writing of the case history. This narrative journey leads the reader through the stages of analysis, to the untangling of the obsession. The narrative of the Rat Man's compulsion is undertaken, first by the patient (whom Freud quotes at length), then by the analyst, and then once more by James Strachey, Freud's translator and editor (translator of '8 trans- lator, since we characterized Freud's role as the translator of a secret language). The Rat Man's obsessional journey, senseless and complex, gives Freud and Strachey no little difficulty in their effort to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 decipher and communicate it. What can the Rat Man I s compulsive journey tell us about the others, the journey-analysis and the journey-narrative? About the metaphor or allegory of "j Durney" in general, especially as 1 t touches the question of autobiographies, of autobiography as narrative text? The Rat Man I S Narrative. In his second analytic session with Freud, the patient relates "the experience which was the immediate occasion of my coming to youl! (X, 165). The patient is in the army, on manoeuvres. He has lost his pince-nez, has wired his optician for a replacement. During a halt (for the compulsive journey begins at a halt), a cruel captain tells him of a certain torture that consists in compelling rats to Durrow into the anus of the victim. The story terrifies the patient and he imagines that the torture is being carried out on his father (already deceased as it happens) and a lady he loves. That evening, he continued [writes Freud], the same captain had handed him a packet that had arrived by the post and had said: 'Lieutenant A. has paid the charges for you. You must pay him back. r The packet contained the pince-nez that he had wired for. At that instant, a 'sanction' had taken shape in his mind, namely, that he was not to pay back the money or it would happen (that is, the phantasy about the rats would come true as regards his father and the lady). And immediately, in accordance with a type of procedure with which he was familiar, to combat this sanction there had arisen a command in the shape of a vow: 'You must pay back the 3.80 kronen to Lieutenant A.' He had said these words to himself half aloud (X, l6?-68). Thus, the compulsion begins with the contracting of a debt, a debt that will eventually lead the patient on his long and senseless journey. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. There follows a period when the patient finds various obstacles to prevent him from. repaying the debt. Finally, he offers Lieutenant A. the money t but the latter refused to accept [it], declaring that he had not paid anything for him and had nothing whatever to do with the post, which was the business of Lieutenant B. This had thrown my patient into great perplexity, for it meant that be was unable to keep his vow, since it had been based upon false premises. He had excogitated a very curious means of getting out of his difficulty, namely, that he should go to the post office with both the men, A. and B., that A. should give the young lady there the 3.80 kronen, that the young lady should give them to B. t and that then he himself should puy back the 3.80 kronen to A. according to the wording of his vow (X, 168). 13 The second session of the analysis ends soon after this communication, which Freud asks the patient to repeat three times. It ends, then, with the narration of a compulsion to take a journey, the preliminary conditions for undertaking the journey, but without revealing the outcome of the compulsion, that is, the journey itself. This corre- sponds exactly to the first phase of the journey that Freud has used as a metaphor for analysis. At the end of the session, the patient is "dazed and bewildered." And, Freud interjects, it would not surprise me to hear that at this point the reader had ceased to be able to follow. For even the detailed account which the patient gave me of the external events of these days and of his reactions to them was full of self-contradictions and sounded hopelessly confused (X, 169). The narrative, then, does not make sense: not to the narrator, nor to the analyst, nor to the eventual reader. As long as this narrative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. remains confused, the the journey itself, is also inde- cipberable. Freud has already noted the "peculiar indeterminateness" of the patient's remarks, the vagueness of the wording of his obsessions, and has called it "characteristic" of the neurosis. The analyst's role, in fact, is to clear up the distortions, to make explicit the wording of the compulsions, to restore the integrity of the narrative. At this point in the case history, Freud adds: It was only when [the patient] told the story for the third time that I could get him to realize its obscurities and could lay bare the errors of memory and the displace- ments in which he had become involved. I shall spare myself the trouble of reproducing these details, the essentials of which we shall easily be able to pick up later on (X, 169). This is a crucial decision on Freud's part. By failing to clear up 14 the obscurities when they arise, the writer of the case history obliges the reader to enter the analysis, to go through the same process of discovery, of reconstruction or rewriting that is the work of analysis, to take the journey herself. The case history, in fact, is arranged as a chronicle, and can easily be read as so many stops on a journey toward meaning. The journey, however, is not without its difficulties. The Detour. At the third session, as we may the Rat Man proceeds to finish his narrative of the journey. But this journey takes a surprising turn: He had spent a terrible night. Arguments and counter- arguments had struggled with one another. The chief argument, of course, had been that the premise upon which his vow had been based --that Lieutenant A. had paid the money for him-- had proved to be false. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, he had consoled himself with the thought that the business was not yet finished, as A. would be riding with him next morning part of the way to the railway station at P---, so that he would still have time to ask him the necessary favour.* As a matter of fact he had not done this, and had allowed A. to go off without him; but he had given instructions to his orderly to let A. know that he intended to pay him a visit that afternoon. He himself had reached the station at half-past nine in the morning. He had deposited his luggage there and had seen to various things he had to do in the sma!! town, with the intention of afterwards paying his visit to A. The village in which A. was stationed was about an hour's drive from the town of P---. The railway journey to the place where the post office was [Z---] would take three hours. He had calculated, therefore. that the execution of his compli- cated plan would just leave him time to catch the evening train from P--- to Vienna. The ideas that were struggling within him had been, on the one hand, that he was simply being cowardly and was obviousl:- only trying to save himself the unpleasantness of asking A. to make the sacrifice in question and of cutting a foolish figure before him, and that that was why he was disregarding his vow; and. on the other hand, that it would. on the contrary. be cowardly of him to fulfil his vow, since he only wanted to do so in order to be left 'in peace by his obsessions. When in the course of his deliberations, the patient added, he found the arguments so evenly balanced as these, it was his custom to allow his actions to be decided by chance events as though by the hand of God. When, therefore, a porter at the station had addressed him with the words, 'Ten o'clock train, sir?' be had answered 'Yes,' and in fact had gone off by the ten 0 I clock train. In this way he had produced a fait accompli and felt greatly relieved. He had proceeded to b o o ~ a seat for luncheon in the restaurant car. At the first station they had stopped at it had suddenly struck him that he still had time to get out, wait for the next down train, travel back in it to P---, drive to the place where Lieutenant A. was quartered, from there make the three hours' train journey with him to the post office, and so forth. It had only been the considerat:!.on that he had booked his seat for luncheon with the steward of the restaurant car that had prevented him carrying;) ut this design. He had not abandoned it. however; he had only put off getting out until a later stop. In this way he had struggled through from station to station, till he had reached one at which it had seemed to him impossible to get out because he had relatives living there. He had then determined to travel through to Vienna. to look up his friend there and lay the whole matter before him, 15 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and then, after his friend had ldade his decision, to catch the night train back to P-. When I expressed a doubt whether this would have been feasible, he assured me that he would have had half an hour to spare between the arrival of the one train and the" departure of the other. When he bad. arrived in Vienna, however, he had failed to find his fri.end at the restaurant at which be had counted on meeting him, and had not reached his friend I shouse till eleven o'clock at night His friend had held up his hands in amazement to think he could still be in doubt ;.ilether he was suffering .from an obsegsio!l, Slld had calmed him down for the night, so that he slept excellently. Next morning they had gone together to the post office, to dispatch the 3.80 kronen to the post office [Z-] at which the packet containing the pince-nez had arrived (X, 170-2. Strachey's brackets). 16 At the point I have marked with an asterisk, James Strachey appends a note. I shall return to it in a moment. We notice first that the sequel of the narrative reveals that the Rat Man never arrives at Z--, at his destination (for what could a place called liZ" be but a destination?). In fact, he never gets beyond the preliminar1es:ofi this journey ("SO complicated and hard to effect," as Freud puts it), beyond the numerous obstacles that seem to arise. When the journey finally begins, it leads in the opposite direction, !!!!I. from Z--. At the porter's arbitrary cue ("Ten 0' clock train, sir?"), the Rat Man begins a journey that is in fact a ~ The patient boards the train and begins a different journey, no less senseless, and, as Freud will make clear, no less obsessional than the first. In contrast to the first compulsive journey, however, this train ride is undertaken with no clear destination in mind, with no plan of arrivaL The patient arrives, as if by accident, in Vienna. He finds his friend and with him, he sends a sum of money, the repayment of the debt, to the post office at Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 Z--. But before attempting to interpret this detour J to establish its relation to the question of narrative l1ne, let us return to Strachey's footnote. The Translator Intervenes. In the middle of the Rat Man's narrative, J&mes Strachey interrupts with the following footnote: "[Reference to the sketch-map on p. 212 may make this paragraph easier to follow.]" Freud is relating a journey, but the narrative, Strac.hey believes, is difficult to "follow." He prescribes a map and directs us to another footnote. When we turn to page 212, however, we find more complications. Freud explains in the footnote that my patient did his very best to throw confusion over the little episode of the repayment of the charges for his pince-nez, so that perhaps my own account of it may also have failed to clear it up entirely. I therefore repro- duce here a little map by means of which Mr. and Mrs. Strachey have endeavoured to make the situation at the end of the manoeuvres plainer. Freud wants to "clear up" the confusion that the Rat Han has caused, to restore the meaning that the Rat Man held back, in short, to pay back the debt of meaning that the Rat Man contracted when he kept secret part of the episode. 4 In this interest, and with the help of the Stracheys, who feel that Freud still owes his reader something, Freud decides to reproduce a little map. The map tlla t Freud refers to in the note, however, does not appear in the Standard Edition. In its place is a second map, accompanied by a translator's note, appended, in brackets, to the end of Freud's note: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. I The Rat Man's Journey (Standard Edition) Unfortunately the original map, printed in the German editions of 1924 and later, as well as in the English translation in Volume III of Freud's Collected Papers (p. 349), was itself totally inconsistent with some of the peculiar data presented in the case history. An entirely new one has therefore been constructed for the present edition (X, 212). At this point, the reader who is paying attention to this matter of '.18 journey and narrative, cannot fail to be curious about this first map, the map that was not good enough to clarify the narrative that, in turn, was not good enough to clarify the Rat Man I s confused of a senseless journey. So we turn to an earlier edition, S to another footnote and another map: Fig. II The Rat Man's Journey (Original Map) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 What we find is a map in the form of a cross, as if it were parodying itself by crossing itself out, putting itself saua rature, like a repressed memory.6 So that, in our quest for a map that will help us unravel the confused narrative, that will help us read, we find instead, not exactly a map of read1ng, but a1 least a pattern that suggests how reading proceeds, how meaning 1s produced. Strachey's intervention held out the promise of meaning, the promise of a map to Z-, the promise of linearity, a way of bypassing the detours and distortions of Freud's texts. But this promise leads us on another detour, leads us in fact to a dead end. an effaced map. ~ Let us return to the Rat Man I s account of the trip he did not take. Why, we may ask, does the Rat Man go to Vienna, and why does be feel compelled to go to Z--? For the same reason that we follow Strachey's footnote, as if it beckoned to us ("Ten 0' clock train, sir?"). The Rat Man wants to reach the end. A packet has arrived for him, but a debt remains. In Vienna, under the influence of his friend, the Rat Man does send the kronen to the post office at z-. This is not to say that he repays the debt, for it will trouble him for some time to come. But the sum that the patient dispatches to z-- is Freud's first clue in deciphering the narrative: It was this last statement which provided me with a starting- point from which I could begin straightening out the various distortions involved in his story. After his friend had brought him to his senses he had dispatched the small sum of money in question nei ther to Lieutenant A. nor to Lieutenant B. J but direct to the post office. He must therefore have known that he owed the amount of the charges due upon the packet !CJ no one but the official at the post office, and he must have known this before he started on his journey. It Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. turned out that in fact he had known it before the captain made his request. and before he himself made his VOW; for he uow rememb.p.red that a few hours before meeting the c.ruel captain, who had told him how stood. This officer, on hearing his name, had told him that he had been at the post office a short time before. and that the young lady there had asked him whether he knew a Lieutenant L. (the patient, that 1s), for whom a packet had arrived, to be paid on delivery. The officer had replied that he did not, but the young lady had been of opinion that she could trust the unknown lieutenant and had said that in the meantime she would pay the charges herself. It had been in this way that the patient had come into possession of the pince-nez he had ordered. The cruel captain had made a mistake when, as he handed him over the packet, he had asked him to pay back. the 3.80 to Aq and the patient must have known it was a mistake. In spite of this he had made a vow founded upon this mistake, a vow that was bound to be a torment to him. In so doing he had suppressed to himself, just as in telling the story he had suppressed to me, the episode of the other captain and the existence of the trusting young lady at the post office (X, 172-73). 20 When the missing episode has been restored to the narrative, it becomes clear that the Rat Man's attempt to pay back A., his complicated plan to unite A. and B. at point Z. is itself a pointless detour, that all he was required to do in order to discharge the debt was to send the money directly to the post office. Both the journey to Z-- and the journey to Vienna are detours for what could have been accomplished by a simple letter. Having restored the confused narrative and inserted the crucial episode, Freud notes: IIWhen this correction has been made his behavior becomes even more senseless and unintelligible than before" (X, 173). The reconstruction of the miSSing episode clarifies nothing, for we have not yet got at the sense of the debt, of the vow, of the journey. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 The debt is not discharged so easily. Even when the patient has remembered that the vow was made on false premises, premises he knew before the vow, this does not counteract its effect. For a long while, he will view his time in Vienna, in psychoanalysis, as just a stopping- off place before the real journey to Z--: [The patient's] determination to consult a doctor was woven into his delirium in the following ingenious manner. He thought he would get a doctor to give him a certificate to the effect that it was necessary for him, in order to recover his health, to perform some such action as he had planned in connection with Lieutenant A.; and the lieutenant would DO doubt let himself be persuaded by the certificate into accepting the 3.80 kronen from him Many months later, when his at its height, he once more felt a temptation to travel to P-- after all, to look up Lieutenant A. and to go through the farce of returning him the money (X, 173). The debt is not so easily discharged. The analyst himself is drawn into the debt; the Rat Man seeks out a doctor who will supply him with a certificate, the ticket that would take him back to Z--- to fulfill the vow. Yet Freud says that his role is different, that "there was no question of getting a certificate from me all he asked of me was, very reasonably, to be freed of his obsessions" (X, 173). But perhaps repaying the debt and being freed of one's obsessions are not such different things. For Freud's role as analyst is to uncover the Rat Man's secret, restore the meaning of the compulsion. repay the debt of meaning, a meaning that was lost in the "indeterminateness" of the compulsion, in the formation of the compulsion itself, which seeks to disguise its own meaning. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 In time, Freud will fill in the gaps, wUl tell us the meaning of the debt, of the obsession, of the rat torture --or rather, will lead us to discover it. But first, we must take another detour. The Detour of Analysis. We have already followed on his quest for sense, on his journey to restore or repay the meaning that has been lost in the Rat Man's or in Freud's narrative. And now, following Freud I s text more or less faithfully, we are again led in another direction. The section is called "Initiation into the Nature of the Treatment, II and it is also an initiation of the reader: The reader must not expect to hear at once what light I have to throw upon the patient's strange and senseless obsessions about the rats. The true technique of psycho- analysis requires the physician to suppress his curiosity and leaves the patient complete freedom on choosing the order in which topics shall succeed each other during the treatment. At the fourth session, accordingly, I received the patient with the question: 'And how do you intend to proceed to-day?' (X, 113-74). This question, l'How do you intend to proceed to-day?" is Freud I s version of that other question, "Ten o'clock train, sir?" which put the Rat Man on a train leading on a long detour that ends in Vienna. And indeed, the patient will not continue to discuss the rat obsession, but will lead Freud in a different direction, just as, at this point, Freud the writer will break off the narrative and will lead the reader through all the twists and turns of analysis, according to the "true technique of psychoanalysis. II In fact, these twists and turns constitute what Freud termed, in another place, the "preliminaries" one must take care of before a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 journey towards a cure can begin. But since, in this case, the "initiation into the treatment" follows on the Rat Man's narrative of his journey, interrupts the narrative, we may just as well see the sec tien as a ~ in the case history as well as in the analysis. And indeed, the analysis can proceed in no other way: just as the Rat Man could not have cured his obsessional neurosis nor even discharged his "debt" by taking the train direct1y to Z--, the analysis could Dot have eventuated in a cure if Freud had pressed the Rat Man on this single strand of the neurosis. The analysis can only proceed by detour, and, as in the obsessional journey, this detour will move toward an end of its own, altering irrevocably the journey itself. The Rat Man never arrives at Z---, for in the course of the detour (in Vienna), he realizes that his destination is not Z--- after all. In the same way Freud's analysis reveals that the solution to the Rat Man's obsession does not lie simply within the elements of this first narrative. h u s ~ it is surprising that in the introduction to the case history, Freud must apologize for the "fragmentary" and "aphoristic" nature of the text and explain that a programme of this kind seems to me to require some justification. For it might otherwise be thought that I regard this method of making a communication as perfectly correct and as one to be imitated; whereas in reality I am,) nly accommodating myself to obstacles ex, 155). So that, in spite of everything, Freud continues to privilege narrative and to consider the detour as a mere "accommodation" to an "obstacle. If a method, above a l l ~ that should not be imitated. Despite a text that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 reveals the obsessional nature of narrative and the necessity of a detour that is no longer simply a derivation from a journey to which one must return, Freud clings to the ideal of a smooth and uninterrupted narrative. The detour of analysis comprises thirty-five of the sixty-two pages that make up the "Extracts from the Case History." In it, various elements of the rat obsession, as well as other obsessions, are touched upon, considered, and. dropped again. Towards the end of this long detour, Freud remarks that one day tbe patient mentioned quite casually an event which I could not fail to recognize as the precipitating cause of his illness Be himself had no notion that he had brought forward anything of importance (X, 195). Freud' 8 t'emark follows a long section of "obsessional ideas, II an almost random. enumeration of the Rat Man's compulsions. It appears, then, almost casually in the text, inserts into the middle of the case history the precipitating cause, the premise or origin of the Rat Man's obsessional neurosis. By plac.ing it here, heud acc.omplishes two things: first, he reenacts the "casualness" with which the Rat Man introduces it "one day" (and, in fact, after the prominent position and startling detail of the rat story, one easily forgets the almost banal precipitating cause); secondly, he retains in the case history the structural function that the event has in the analysis itself. For the discovery made on this one day leads to the "transferential relation- shipll with the analyst that is the condition for a successful analysis.7 This transference makes possible the passage from the "preliminaries" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 to the journey of analysis itself. The precipitating cause, presented almos t as casually by Freud as by the Rat Man, thus becomes the central moment in the analysis. The Debt of Meaning. We can now begin the journey itself. !lAnd now the path was clear to the solution of [the] rat idea (dann war aher auch der Weg zur Auflosung der Rattenvorstellung frei) n (X, 209). liThe treatment had reached its turning-point" or, as Freud puts it, we are now "auf der Kohe der Kur." The term IlHOhe" suggests that the analysis until this point has been an upward journey, and that the path leading to the solution of the rat idea entails a reversal of direction. Just where is the analysis heading? It is at this point that "a quantity of material information. became available and so made possible a reconstruction of the whole concatenation of events II (X, 209-10). This is also the moment, we recall, when the patient is to "get hold of the material put before himll and thus become "independent of the physician I S authority. II In other words, in this last stage? the patient separates himself from the physician, escapes the authorship of the analyst, takes the elements brought out in the analysis and molds them into an autobiography, into a narrative self. This process, however, raises a number of difficulties. First, unlike the other episodes in the analysis, which Freud manages to replicate at a textual level in the case history, the physician cannot reproduce this phase of the analysis without negating it. For Freud is the of the case history and must, therefore, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 continue to speak for the Rat Man, retain his authority over him. The last sceDe of analysis cannot be represented, except as a gap: It was impossible to unravel [the] tissue of phantasy thread by thread; the therapeutic success of the treatment was precisely what stood in the way of this. The patient recovered, and his ordinary life began to assert its claims: there were many tasks before him, which he had already neglected far too long, and which were incompatible with a continuation of the treatment. I am not to be blamed, therefore, for this gap in the analysis (X, 207-08n.). If anyone is to be "blamed for this gap," it is, of course, the patient. Not this time, for "throwing confusion" over an episode in order to hide the meaning of bis illness even from himself (this. we remember, was Freud's pretext for including the map) but rather. Ear getting well. for abandoning his "author" before the latter had elucidated all the details. By becoming the author of his own life, the Rat Man hurries away on his own journey, leaving the analyst with a gap in his text. A residual debt of meaning remains. The above passage suggests something else: this second stage of the analysis, "the journey itself, II is also a detour. a detour from the larger journey of life, which the patient is now anxious to get back to. Indeed, Freud habitually recommends to his patient that he not take any important decisions affecting his life during the time of his treatment --for instance. not to choose any profession or definitive love-object-- but to postpone all such plans until after his recovery (XII, 153). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 It becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the journey from. the detour. or to point to a journey that is not itself a detour from. another journey. In addition to the impossibility of representing the last phase of analysis, there is another problem involved in the Rat Man's attempt to make sense of his life, and in particular, to make sense of the obsessional journey. To put it simply, the compulsion has no meaning ~ The obsession is a text and, what is more, an allegorical text whose function is to represent an earlier episode even while keeping it from becoming conscious. In the particular case we are dealing with, the allegory"1s not even autobiographical since it refers to an episode in the life of the Rat Man' s ~ : One of his father's little adventures had an important element in common with the captain's request. His father, in bis capacity as non-comm:l.ssioned officer, had control over a small sum of money and had on one occasion lost it at cards. (Thus he had been a I Spielratte. ') He would have found himself in a serious position 1f one of his comrades had not advanced him the amount. After he had left the army and become well-off, he had tried to find this friend in need so as to pay him back the money, but had not _naged to trace him. The patient was uncertain whether he had ever succeeded in returning the money. The captain's words, 'You must pay back the 3.80 kronen to Lieutenant A. , ' had sounded to his ears like an allU'Sioti'"""to this unpaid debt of his father I s (X, 210-11). At this point, the meaning of the debt rejoins what I have been calling the "debt of meaning." The financial debt cannot be discharged by the patient because, in fact, it reverts back to the father. The debt is not owed by the son, but by the father. Thus, the obsession to repay the debt, to fill up the lack, cannot be relieved by the simple act of returning a small sum. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 In the same way, the debt of meaning. contracted by the Rat Man and by Freud, the obligation to explain what the obsession means cannot be repaid by simply restoring the confused narrative to its original form. by filling in the ellipses and straightening out the distortions. The narrative must be brought to bear on another, prior scene. Just as Strachey' 5 promise of meaning led eventually to a superannuated map, the meaning that the Rat Man searches for in his own life leads further back, to his father. The autobiographical obsession is "an identifica- tion with his father" (X, 211), that is, a "heterobiography," and the journey out (out of analysis, out of senselessness) is a journey ~ In order to make sense of his life, the Rat Man must re-turn to his father I s life, to an unpaid debt contracted by the father. That is to say that an obsession cannot simply be an autobiographical text and that an autobiography cannot simply be a narrative of the self, a journey from one station to another, without, at the same time, inscription of other selves, other journeys that threaten to lead the narrative on an endless detour. Needless to say, the other elements in the compulsion --the two lieutenants, the woman at the post office, the indecision as to which direction to take- all allude to other conflicts, other people, other episodes, in the lives of the Rat Man and of his father. I will not discuss them here. The Birth of the Rat Man. We arrive, finally, at the lIsol ut ion of tha rat idea," at the :::::.ca:1ing of the .... ery short journey that two phantasmal rats take into the anus of their victim. Freud promises to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 give us "the briefest possible summary" (X, 210), the completion of this long-<ieferred or -detoured narrat:l.ve, but he must, nevertheless, "follow the course of the analysis more closely, II follow, that is, the detours and free associations that are characteristic of analysis. Freud explains that the idea of the punishment carried out by means of rats had acted as a stimulus to a nmnber of [the pat:Lent's] instincts and had called up a whole quantity of recollections; 80 that, in the short interval between the captain's story and his request to pay back the money, rats had acquired a series of symbolic meanings, to which, during the period which followed, fresh ones were continually being added (X, 213). In the "very incomplete account ll (X, 213) that follows, Freud uncovers a chain of meanings that the signifier "rat I! has taken on. This signifying chain, perpetuating itself through verbal bridges Ratten, Spielratte)8 and connotations (rats canoy disease, therefore they signify prostitution, etc.) goes on for feur pages. Yet, in spite of all this wealth of material, no light was thrown upon the meaning of his obsessional idea until one day it became impossible to escape the inference that rats had another meaning still --namely, that of chUdren (X, 215). Now it happens that the woman whom the patient loves cannot bear children (any 1'lIOre than his own father could) and that the Rat Man 1 s fondness for children was the reason that he hesitated to marry the lady. Freud thereby advances an interpretation of the obsession: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. When the captain had handed him the packet upon which the charges were due and had requested him to pay back the 3.80 kronen to Lieutenant A., he had already been aware that his 'cruel superior' was making a mistake, and that the only person he owed anything to was the young lady at the post office. It might easily, therefore, have occurred to him to think of some derisive reply, such as, 'Will I, though?' or 'Pay your grandmother!' or 'Yes! You bet I'll pay him back the money' --answers which would have been subject to no compulsive force. But instead, out of the stirrings of his father-complex and out of his memory of the scene from his childhood, there formed in his mind some such answer as 'Yes! I'll pay back the money to A. when my father and the lady have children!' or 'As sure as my father and the lady can have children I'll pay him back the money.' In short, a derisive affirmation coupled with an absurd condition which could never be fulfilled. But now the crime had. been committed; he had insulted the two persons who were dearest to him --his father and his lady. The deed had called for punishment, and the penalty had consisted in his binding himself by a vow which it was impossible for him to fulfil and which entailed literal obedience to his superior's ill-founded request (X, 217-18). Freud adds that the sanction was based upon the influence of two infantile sexual theories . The first. of these is that. babies come out of the anus; and the second, which follows logically from the first, is that. tIlen can have babies just as well as women. According to the technical rules for interpreting dreams, the notion of coming out of the rectum can be represented by the opposite notion ~ p i n g into the rectum (as in the rat punishment) (X, 220). -- The direction of the rat.s' journey has been reversed, and an under- 30 standing of the obsession can only come about when the proper direction is restored. And, since this understanding comes at the very end of the analysis, we can say that, in some sense, the trip to Z---, the detour to Vienna, the psychoanalysis itself with all the detours it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 entails. are all just an enormous detour that attempts to set the rats back on their proper course. The rats must get back out of the anus. From the compulsion itself to Freud's case history, each of the texts is an effort to convert the torture into birth, to signify this impossible birth by the father. And if, as the analysis shows, the patient is himself the rat, then it is his birth that we witness at the end of the case history. When the meaning of the rat idea had been made clear, Freud assures us, "the patient's rat delirium disappeared" (X, 220). The obsession can only persist for as long as its meaning remains hidden: in this unusual case, the translation or interpretation of the obsession makes the "original text" vanish completely. The original compulsion-text, as we saw9 was an impossible autobiography, the allegory of the impossibi- lity of an autobiography that is not also '8 "heterography." The Rat Man suffers from an identification with his father, suffers from being trapped within the father, from sharing his identity. The autobio- graphies of analysis works to efface this hetero-autobiographica1 text, to bring about a rebirth, a separation from the father. And this separation from the father is also a separation from the analyst, who stands as author of the Rat Man 1 s life until the latter can take control. When the journey is finally over, when the debt of meaning has finally been repaid, what else remains? The text can only conclude with an impossible birth. The Rat Man recovers his health. He leaves the detour of analysis and rejoins the life he had neglected for so long. We can only Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 contemplate the tragic irony of the directness with which, after so many detours, the Rat Man now proceeds to his destination. For in a final note, added in 1923, Freud writes: liThe patient's mental health was restored to him by the analys:1s which I have reported upon in these pages. Like so many other young men of value and promise, he perished in the Great War" (X,. 249). Fragments of Dora/Fragments of Freud The Aesthetics of Analysis. Freud's clearest formulation of the relationship between narrative autobiography and mental health appears in a footnote near the beginning of "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria" (the case of Dora). Freud has been explaining the hysteric's characteristic difficulties in presenting her life in a coherent verbal form. In his note, he offers the example of a healthy ideal: Another physician once sent his sister to me for psycho- therapeutic treatment, telling me that she had for years been treated without success for hysteria (pains and defective gait). The short account which he gave me seemed quite consistent with the diagnosis. In m.y first hour with the patient I got her to tell me her history herself. When the story came out perfectly clearly and connectedly in spite of the remarkable events it dealt with, I told myself that the case could not be one of hysteria, and immediately instituted a careful physical examination. This led to the diagnosis of a not very advanced stage of tabes, which was later treated with markedly beneficial results (VII, 16-17n., emphasis mine). The clarity with which this patient tells her story, the clearsighted- ness with which she fits all the odd-shaped pieces together into a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 smooth narrative, has a compelling significance in the psychoanalytic setting. The patient's narrative of her life is proof of her mental health, of the existence of an integral self untouched by hysteria. The analyst's diagnosis is immediate; the proper treatment is prescribed; and physical health is restored. This little success story stands in brilliant contrast to the ''mutilated relics ll of a life that the hysteric Dora offers Freud. In fact, Dora never does succeed in giving Freud a coherent account of her 1:I.fe. The analysis of Dora fails: the hysterical body-text resists interpretat:l.on, and after three months, Dora, in an act of revenge against Freud, unexpectedly leaves the analysis. Dora's story, as the title of Freud's case history indicates, remains a fragment, the pieces CBruchstucke) of a life that should have been restored, that should have, in addition, provided the writer/analyst with a comp1ete and coherent narrative. What begins as the hysteric's incapacity to make sense of her life becomes a pressing prob1em for Freud the writer as we11. A curious repetition marks the re1ation between the subject of analysis and the writer of her case history, between the patient's broken narrative and that of the scientist.. "In face of the of my analytic results, If Freud claims, I had no choice but to follow the example of those discoveries whose good forttme it is to bring to the light of day after their long burial the priceless though mutilated relics of antiquity. I have restored what is missing, taking the best models known to me from other analyses; but, like a conscientious archaeolo- gist, I have not omitted to mention in each case where the authentic parts end and. my constructions begin (VII, 12, emphasis mine). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 As the careful scientist, the archaeologist of knowledge, Freud not only publishes these priceless but mutilated relics, he also augments, shapes, and organizes them. Yet this work of restoration does not complete: Freud does not omit the scar that marks the difference between the relic and his construction. The relic retains its frag- men ted character: the construction, grafted onto it, only accentuates the appearance of incompleteness. As we shall see, this work of is not only .an archaeological endeavour, but an aesthetic one as well. In his attempt to resolve the conflict in Dora 1 s life, to shape her history into a story that makes sense, Freud appends a fictional "happy ending" to the failed analysis. The analyst assumes, with marked ambivalence, the role He assumes and repudiates the role t noting his inability to compensate for the fragmented form of the text, for the fragmented analysis that Dora has left in his hands. For it is finally, who is to blame for and Freud the Dichter cannot master that act of the acting-out of an earlier moment in her life, that Dora carries out when she leaves the analysis in fragments. Fragments of Dora. In the first pages of the "Fragment, II Freud tells us that Dora's inability to produce a "smooth and precise" account of her life "possesses great theoretical significance." He attributes this inability to three factors: In the first place, patients consciously and intentionally keep back part of what they ought to tell --things that are perfectly well knmrn to them-- because they have not got over their feelings of timidity and shame (or discre- tion, where what they say concerns other people); this is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the share taken by conscious disingenuousness. In the second place, part ~ e s t i knowledge, which the patients have at their disposal at other times, disappears while they are actually telling their story, but without their making any deliberate reservations: the share taken by unconscious disingenuousness. In the third place, there are invariably true amnesias --gaps in the memory into which not only old recollec- tions but even quite recent ones have fallen-- and paramnesias, formed secondarily so as to fill in those gaps. When the events themselves have been kept in mind, the purpose underlying the amnesias can be fu1- fUled just as surely by destroying a connection, and a connection is most surely broken by altering the chronological order of events. The latter always proves to be the most vulnerable element in the store of I!lemory and the one which is most easily subject to repression. Again, we meet with many recollections that are in what might be described as a first stage of repression, and these we find surrounded with doubts. At a later period the doubts would be replaced by a loss or a falsification of memory (VII, 16-1'1). The first two factors (conscious and unconscious disingenuousness) concern the question of audience, or, more exactly, the relationship between the patient and her audience-of-one (but also her eventual 35 "biographerll or sorts), the analyst. The patient is reluctant, overly timid: she does not wish to tell everythir.g about herself to a virtual stranger and, what is more, to a man. This is also a question of social class, as Freud points out in Studies in Hysteria: his patients are, for the most part, from the upper classes, and this accounts for their shame in discussing personal, and especially, sexual matters with the physician. Nevertheless, by including this feature in the enumeration of the IIt heoretical significance ll of the hysteric f 5 confused narrative, Freud seems to be claiming that this disingenuousness is one of the symptoms of hysteria. It is, in any case, a symptom that the analyst Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 makes every effort to cure. I shall have more to say about the relationship between analyst and. patient, and in particular, about the problematiC: bond between Freud. and Dora which accounts for the failure of the analysis. For it is precisely what Dora keeps back, as well as her reasons for doing so, that makes all Freud's efforts futile. The ust factor that Freud mentions relates to memory and consists in three parts. There is, first, the problem of gaps or shady parts in the memory, events that are forgotten or in doubt; secondly, there is the effect of ''paramnesia, II the fictions that the unconscious constructs in order to f1l1 in the gaps of memory; 9 and finally, the scrambled chronology that makes finding connections, causal relations between events, virtually impossible. These problems, Freud insists, are not insignificant: they are by the illness of hysteria. ''That this state of affairs should exist in regard to the memories relating to the history of the illness is a necessary correlate of the symptoms and one which is theoretically requisite" (VII, 17-18, Freud's emphasis). The therapist's role is to lead the patient to produce the narrative of her life: In the further course of the treatment the patient supplies the facts which, though he had known them all along, had been kept back or had not occurred to his mind. The paramnesias prove untenable, and the gaps in his memory are filled in. It is only towards the end of the treatment that we have before us an intelligible, consistent, and [emphasis mine] case history. Whereas the practical aim of the treatment is to remove all possible symptoms and to replace them by conscious thoughts, we may regard it as a second and theoretical aim to repair all the damage to the patient's memory. These two aims are coincident. When Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. one is reached, so is the other; and the same path leads to them both (VII, 18) .10 In a quite literal sense, psychoanalysis is a workshop for autobio- graphers. The analyst I s goal is to break down the repressed memories that have erected themselves into monuments of physical symptoms, and to replace these with conscious memories in verbal, narrative form. Success is measured by the patient's ability to produce such a narra- 37 tive at the end of analysis. By this criterion, the analysis of Dora, which ends with her listening to Freud's version of her life, listening without a word before leaving for good, is unquestionably a failure. When Dora closes the door behind her, Freud is left with only the fragments of an analysis. Fragments of Freud. It is by no means a matter of indifference to Freud that his case history, like Dora's life story, remains a fragment. Freud begins and ends the case history with lengthy explanations and excuses for the form of the text. These explanations sound strangely familiar. Freud begins by facing his accusers. Noting that he is now bringing forward "some of the material" upon which his earlier published findings are based, findings that concern the role of sexuality in the aetiology of the neuroses, Freud adds that I shall not escape blame by this means. Only, whereas before I was accused of giving no information about my patients, now I shall be accusedof giving information about my patients that ought not to be given (VIl: 7)- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Having thus imagined an audience of accusers, Freud goes on to sdmi t that they are not altogether in the wrong: Even if I ignore the ill-will of narrow-minded critics such as these, the presentation of my case histories remains a problem which is hard for me to solve [TJhe complete elucidation of a case of hysteria is bound to involve the revelation of. intimacies and the betrayal of. . secrets. It is certain that the patients would never have spoken if it had occurred to them that their admissions might possibly he put to scientific uses (VII, 7-8). Freud's next gesture, however, is to defend his practice: In such circumstances persons of delicacy, as well as those who were merely timid, would give first place to the duty of medical discretion and would declare with regret that the matter was one upon which they could offer science no enlightenment. But in my opinion the physician has taken upon himself but towards science as well. . Thus it becomes the physician's duty to publish what he believes he knows of the causes and structure of hysteria, and it becomes a disgraceful piece of cowardice on his part to neglect doing so (VII, 8). These opening paragraphs are nothing other than a discussion of the 38 problem of "disingenuousness" or "discretion ll that Freud characterizes as a difficulty that his patient faces in relating her life. The characters have shifted --now it is the writer/analyst before a medical readership- but the structure remains the same. Freud's strategy is to produce the accusations, to concur with them, appropriate them to a certain degree, only to chastise himself for this ill-founded discre- tiOD, this "disgraceful piece of cowardice." He also implicitly turns these self-accusations back on his readers, on those who are more timid than he. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Freud's next move is to turn his accusers' other claim, that he reveals too much, back onto the shoulders of his readers: I am aware that -in this city, at least-- there are many physicians who (revolting though it may seem) choose to read a case history of this kind not as a contribution to the psychopathology of the neuroses, but as a roman a clef designed ,for their private delectation (VII, 9). In order to foil such unscrupulous readers, Freud takes a number of 39 precautions: he chooses a subject who is not known in Vienna; he keeps her identity from everyone but his friend Fliess; he waits four years after the analysis is terminated before publishing his case history; he changes the names of the parties. involved; and he publishes the case in a IIpurely scientific and technical periodical [which] should afford a guarantee against unauthorized readers of this sort" V I I ~ 8). All these arguments take the form of a tu quogue. Freud will say, in reference to Dora, that "a string of reproaches against other people leads one to suspect the existence of a string of self-reproaches with the same content .. There is something undeniably automatic about this method of defending oneself" (VII, 35). It is clear that Freud is ambivalent about betraying Dora's secrets. He betrays her only to cover up that betrayal by changing her name, keeping her identity a secret. And he accuses his colleagues both of being too discreet (in hesitating to publish case histories at all) and of not being discreet enough (in searching his case history for the key to Dora's identity). All in all, Freud is uneasy about the revelations he makes about Dora's life. In short, he is disingenuous; he,distrusts his readers; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 he hides his sec-ret text away in a drawer for four y e a ~ s and when he finally publishes it, he tells only what he wants to tell, keeping back the rest. When his readers object, he reacts violently, calling their behavior "shameful, II "narrow-minded," "ill-willed." and "revolting." And in this, Freud's behavior resembles in every respect Dora's disin- genuousness in telling her story to Freud. Let us not forget that Freud has labelled such behavior "hys teriea!. " The parallel between Freud and Dora does not end there. Freud goes on to list the "technical difficulties" involved in writing a case history, and immediately raises the problem of memory: I will now describe the way in which I have overcome the ~ difficulties of drawing up the report of this case history. The difficulties are very considerable when the physician has to conduct six or eight psychotherapeutic treatments of the sort in a day, and cannot make notes during the actual session with the patient for fear of shaking the patient's confidence and of disturbing his own view of the material under observation. Indeed, I have not yet succeeded in solving the problem of how to record for publication the history of a treatment of long duration. As regards the present case, t:v1o circumstances have come to my assistance. In the first place the treatment did not last for more than three mont.hs; and in the second p lace the material which elucida ted the case was grouped around two dreams. . . The wording of these dreams was recorded immediately after the session, and they thus afforded a secure point of attachment for the chain of interpretations and recollections which proceeded from them. The case history itself was only committed to writing from memory after the treatment was at an end, but while my recollection of the case was still fresh and was heightened by my interest in its publication. Thus the record is not absolutely --phonographically-- exact, but it can claim to possess a high degree of trustworthiness. Nothing of any importance has been altered in it except in some places the order in which the e1..'Planations are given; and this has been done for the sake of presenting the case in a more connected form (VII, 9-10). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 Freud's difficulties are the same in every detail with those of Dora: he mentions "amnesia" (his inability to keep the details of a long analysis in his head), paramnesias (the question of "trustworthiness") and "connectedness," the establishing of rela.tionsh1ps between events. We note, however, that all these problems have 'i?een "overcome. 1I It is as if, in these first pages, Freud is claiming to have mastered the material. to have succeeded where Dora failed, t.o have given a clear and connected acCOtmt of the analysis. Such claims do not square with other statements in the case history nor with the form of the text itself. In the first place, whereas Dora I s gaps of memory are considered to be motivated by her illness, Freud's own forgetfulness is attributed to merely extraneous matters, to the lints of human memory and the impossibility of writing down Dora's words immediately. Contrary to the theory of repression developed in this and other texts by Freud, it is not forgetting, but rather remembering. that is here said to be motivated. ll Nor is Freud's claim to trustworthiness compatible with his "archaeological" practice of attaching "constructions" to the "mutilated relics" of Dora's memory, constructions that resemble suspiciously the patient's "paramnesias," as Freud himself will admit in his late essay, "Constructions in Analysis ll (XXIII, 267-8). Although Freud downplays the role of paramnesias in the passage quoted above, we shall see that these fictional constructions are of important propor- tions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lastly, of course, the IIconnectedness" that Freud tries to bring about by-rearranging the material is wholly relative, since Freud gives no fewer than three reasons for the disconnected, fragmented form of his teJ.:t. First, he writes, the treatment was not carried through to its appointed end, but was broken off at the patient's own wish when it had reached a certain point. At that time some of the problems of the case had not even been attacked and others had only been imperfectly elucidated .. [T]herefore, I can present only a fragment: of an analysis .. There is another kind of incompleteness which I myself have intentionally introduced. I have as a rule not reproduced the process of interpretation to which the patient I s associations and communications had to be subjected, but only the results of that process . It would have led to nothing but hopeless confusion if I had tried to complete [both] task[s] at the same time . For a third kind of incompleteness in this report neither the patient nor the author is responsible. It is, on the contrary, obvious that a single case history, even if it were complete and open to no doubt, cannot provide an answer to all the questions arising out of the problem of hysteria It is not fair to expect from a single case more than it can offer (VII, 12-13). Here, at the end of Freud's "Prefatory Remarks, II the reasons for the text's incompleteness proliferate. This is not the last time that Freud will make excuses for the fragmented form. And, as we saw at several moments in the Rat Man analysis, Freud is most concerned with assigning the blame. His patient Dora is to blame for the first and most important kind of incompleteness, for her unforgivable act of walking out of the analysis before all the problems had been eluci- dated; Freud himself takes responsibility for the second factor in the text's incompleteness; as for the third factor, he implicitly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 blames the reader for not being "fair, II for expecting too much from him. It 1s clear that Freud has a desire to master Dora's story, to form. a complete and coherent narrative out of her Ufe. This desire leads him to blame. whomever he can for the failure, to blame Dora, himself, his readers. But this desire is not fulfilled: Freud can only repeat the fragmented form of a life that Dora presents to him, can only repeat her failure. Freud as Dichter. This last statement is not quite exact. For at several points in the text, Freud will try to compensate for the fragmented text by creating fictional constructs that supplement Dora's account. Where Freud discovers this model of compensation 1s no mystery. For towards the end of the section entitled "The Clinical Picture," where Freud relates Dora's history and circumstances, he explicitly compares his work to that of the literary writer (Dichter): I must now turn to consider a further complication to which I should certainly give no space if I were a man of letters (Dichter) engaged upon the creation of a mental state like this for a short story, instead of being a medical man engaged upon its dissection. The element to which I must now allude can only serve to obscure and efface the outlines of the fine poetic conflict which we have been able to ascribe to Dora. This element would rightly fall a sacrifice to the censorship of a writer, for he, after all, simplifies and abstracts when he appears in the character of a psychologist. But in the world of reality, which I am trying to depict here, a complication of motives, an accumulation and conjunction of mental activities --in a word, overdetermination- is the rule (VII, 59-60). In taking his distance from the literary writer, Freud also offers his definition of the poet's task. Unlike the psychoanalyst, the scientist or archaeologist who must be conc.erned with lithe world of reality," the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 poet simplifies, abstracts and censors in the interest of producing the clear outlines of a "fine poetic conflict. 11 Such an exercise is counter-productive for the analyst, who must learn to report reality with all its complications and overdeterminations, even if this means that his text is less coherent, more fragmented. than the poet's texts. But Freud's protest comes too late and is too weak to refute the evidence of Freud's aesthetic practice. The statement occurs at the end of the psycho-history. and the lIcomplication" is merely appended to the other ending. In fact, the words immediately preceding Freud' 5 protest echo like the end of a chapter in a serial novel, announcing what is to come in an enigmatic voice designed to build suspense: "Nevertheless Dora persisted in denying my contention for some time longer, until, towards the end of the analysis, the conclusive proof of its correctness came to light II (VII, 59). Like the onmiscient narrator, Freud the novelist holds out the denouement of his text to the reader, only to pull it back, to oblige the reader to await the next installment. (James Strachey, who evidently does not approve of Freud's practice, appends a note at this point, instructing the reader of the exact passage that resolves this conflict.) Freud's next sentence is the protest: '"Wenn fch ein .Dichter ware . " Freud's "contention,1I which Dora at first denies, is that the patient is actually in love with Herr K., the older man, husband of her father's lover, who tried to seduce her when she was fourteen and again several years later. As evidence in support of his claim, Freud refers to a cousin of Dora's, who had noticed Dora turn pale when Herr Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 K. came into sight. Freud adds, "l explained to her that the expression of emotion and the play of features obey the unconscious rather than the conscious, and are a means of betraying the former ll (VII, 59). By way of explanation, Freud adds in a footnote: "Compare the lines: 'Ruhig mag ieb Euch erscheinen,/ ROOig gehen sehn. '11 Thus, Freud uses Schiller's lines of in support of the rlfine poetic conflict" he himself has created, to argue that the girl's duplicity, her apparent indifference, masks, as in Schiller's ballet, her true feelings of love (see Strachey's explanatory footnote, VII, 59n). And yet, Freud claims that he 1s not a poet. Freud not only contends that Dora is in love with Herr K., but: that Herr K. 1s also in love with her. Contrary to Dora's belief, Freud claims that Herr K. was not merely treating Dora like the governess whom he seduced and then dismissed from his home; Freud believes that Herr K.' s proposition would have been followed by a more honorable proposal, a proposal of marriage, if only Dora had not responded so badly to his first advances. One begins to suspect that Dora's problem is that she has not read Pamela, that she is unfamiliar with the plot of the insistent and reckless male who tries to seduce a pure young girl, who, in tum, protects her viture until the man finally does the honorable thing and marries her. Freud's every effort is to bring Dora's life to this happy conclusion. Even after the analysis fails, he insists on writing not one, but two, happy endings. In his last session with Dora, Freud tells her: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I am beginning to suspect that you took the affair with Berr K. much more seriously than you have been willing to admit so far. Had not the K.' s often talked of getting a divorce? . May you not have thought that he wanted to get divorced from his wife so as to marry you? . I imagine that this was a perfectly serious plan for the future in your eyes. You have not even got the right to assert that it was out of the question for Herr K. to have had any such intention; you have told me enough about him that points directly towards his having such an intention. Nor does his behavior at L--- [the scene of the attempted seduction] contradict this view. After all, you did not let him finish his speech and do not kno ... what he meant to say to you. the scheme would by no means have been so impracticable .. I know now . that you did fancy that Herr K. 's proposals were serious, andthat he would not leave off until you had married him. Dora had listened to me without any of her usual contradictions. She seemed to me moved; she said good- bye to me very warmly, with the heartiest wishes for the New Year, and-came no more (VII, 107-9). 46 Freud is being carried away by the fictions he has invented as a happy alternative to Dora's illness. From the claim that Dora is in love with Herr K. and wishes to marry him. Freud proceeds to make all the arrangements, assuring her of Herr K.' s good intentions, of the practicality of the plan, even of her father's consent. He is con- vinced that this is the most logical and tidy outcome of the IIpoetic conflict." The scene ends dramatically with Dora's final and Freud is left to ponder the alternative ending he has created, and to rewrite the other characters' parts: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I do not know whether Herr It. would have done any better if it had been revealed to him that the slap Dora gave him by no means signified a final 'No I on her part, but that it expressed the jealousy which had lately been roused in her, while her strongest feelings were still on his side. If be had. disregarded that first 'No, I and had continued to press his suit with a passion which left room for no doubts. the result might very well have been a triumph of the girl's affection for him over all her internal difficulties (VII, 110-11). Freud knows very well how his story ought to end --.nth a bourgeois marriage, a happy resolution. Freud even returns to the events he 47 has heard recounted, refashioned them to his liking, in order to restore Dora's fragmented life, and also, in order to compensate for the fragmented form of the ease history. That is not all. In a postscript, Freud. makes one last attempt to resolve the conflic.t happily, in a marriage: Years have again gone by since her v:::l.sit. In the mean- time the girl has married, and indeed -unless all the signs mislead me-- she has married the young man who came into her associations at the beginning of the analysis of the second dream. Just as the first dream represented her turning away from the man she loved to her father -that is to say, her flight from life into disease-- so the second .dream. announced that she was about to tear herself free from her father and had been reclaimed once more by the realities of life (VII, 122). In a final footnote, Freud admits that his belief that Dora married the man alluded to in her dream. lias I afterwards learnt, was a mistaken notion. II Freud neatly ties up the loose ends by marrying Dora off, not to Herr K., but to a young man who appears in a minor role toward the end of the story. This imagined marriage organizes the case history into the classic structure of conflict and resolution: the first dream Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 advances the conflict, shows Dora's flight into illness, away from love; the second dream introduces a new character, a young man of good family, who leads Dora back to health and happiness. But reality intrudes again in the footnote: Dora marries, not this young man, but someone else, and then only after many years, another bout with hysteria, another treatment with a different analyst. . The footnote undoes all Freud's efforts at coherence. What goes wrong? WhY. despite Freud's efforts to produce a smooth narrative, a happy ending that accounts for every detail, does the case history remain a fragment? We need to return to the "complication" that Freud mentions, the "overdeterminationll that interferes with the Ufine poetic conflict ll that Freud has thus far developed. In the world of reality, which I am trying to depict here, a complication of motives, an accumulation and conjunction of mental activities --in a work, overdetermination-- is the rule. For behind Dora's supervalent train of thought which was concerned with her father's relations with Frau K. there lay concealed a feeling of jealousy which had that lady as its object --a feeling, that, which could only be based upon an affection on Dora I s part for one of her own sex. When Dora talked about Frau K., she used to praise her 'adorable white body' in accents more appropriate to a lover than to a defeated rival. I never heard her speak a harsh or angry word against the lady, although from the point of view of her supervalent thought she should have regarded her as the prime author of her misfortunes (VII, 60-2). What obscures the clear outlines of the "poetic conflict, II the hidden love Dora holds for Herr K., is her unconscious love of another To put it simply, Dora's homosexuality does not make a good story. It interferes with the telling, breaking up the coherence of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 the romantic conflict, and forces Freud back Into the IIworld of reality. " The Roles of Transference. The same factors that contribute to the "fine poetic conflict" in Dora's life, as well as to the frag- menting of that conflict, also lead to difficulties within the analysis, in the relationship between analyst and patient, and to the eventual breaking off of the treatment. And once more, Freud offers several versions of what happened, and of what should have happened, in his case history. It is not surprising that Dora's relationship with the K. '5 is replicated in her bond with the psychoanalyst. In fact, this is essential, an tmavoidable result of the phenomenon Freud calls I1 transference" (Ubertragung). In the case history. Freud defines transferences as the "new editions or facsimiles of the impulses and phantasies which are aroused and made conscious during the progress of the analysis [T]hey replace some earlier person by the person of the physician" V I I ~ 116). In other words, Dora's relationship to Freud is necessarily the repetition of an earlier significant relationship. Freud explains that the operation of transference is both essential and extremely difficult to deal with: Transference is an inevitable necessity ... There is no means of avoiding it and this latest creation of the disease must be combated like all the earlier ones. This happens, however, to be by far the hardest part of the whole task . Transference is the one thing the presence of which has to be detected almost without assistance and with only the slightest clues to go upon (VII, 116). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 This difficult task of detecting transferences must be carried out if the analysis is to be successful. The repetition of the earlier "editionl! (the metaphor is a textual one) must not be allowed to go beyond a certain point; otherwise, the relationship between analyst and patient is put in jeopardy. This is precisely what goes wrong in the Dora case. Preud does not discover Dora's transference tmtil it is too late. He gives several versi.ons of the nature of this transference, but what remains constant in these various and incompatible versions is Freud's self- reproaches. In the first version, Freud contends that Dora has transferred her love and anger toward Herr K. ont.o him: When the first dream came, in which [Dora] gave herself the warning that she bad better leave my treatment just as she had formerly left. Herr K. 's house, I ought to have listened to the warning myself. 'Now, I I ought to have said to her, 'it is from Herr K. that you have made a transference on to me. Have you noticed anything that leads you to suspect me of evil intentions similar (whether openly or in some sublimated form) to Herr K. 191 Or have you been struck by anything about me or got ~ know anything about me which has caught your fancy, as happened previously with Herr K.?' Her attention would then have been turned to some detaU in our relations, or in my person or circumstances, behind which there lay concealed something analogous but immeasurably more important concerning Herr K. And when this transference had been cleared up, the analysis would have obtained access to new memories, dealing, probably, with actual events (VII, 118-19). Freud is once again creating happy endings for his failed analysis. It is important to note that the only way to deal successfully with a transference is to replace the repetition, the reimpression of an earlier text, with commentary on that text. Commentary is here the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. means of mastering the repetition. This is precisely what Freud reproaches himself for having faUed to do: But I was deaf to this first note of warning, thinking I had ample time before me, since no further stages of transference developed snd the material for the analysis had not yet run dry. In this way the transference took me unawares, and, because of the unknown quantity in me which reminded Dora of Herr K., she took her revenge on me as she wanted to take her revenge on him, and deserted me as she believed herself to have been deceived and deserted by him. Thus she acted out an essential part of her recollections and phanta"SieS"' instead of reproducing it in the treatment (VII, 119). The analysis 1s broken off because Freud fails to recognize the transference that is taking place, fails to convert the theater of analysis (for Freud's metaphor of !lacting out" is borrowed from. the 5l theater), the theater where Dora reenac.ts the scenes of her life, into a commentary on that scene. By his own admission, Freud is to blame for being caught up in Dora's play-ac'ting, for being cast in che role of Herr K., and for not recognizing this until it is too late. Yet, on two other occasions, heud reproaches himself for something else, for something quite different. Immediately after telling of Dora's final departure, Freud adds: Might I perhaps have kept the girl under my treatment if I myself had acted a part, if I had exaggerated the importance to me of her staying on, and had shown a warm personal interest in her -a course which, even after allowing: for my position as her physician, would have been tantamount to providing her with the substitute for the affection she longer for? I do not know (VII, l09). Despite Freud's explanation that III have always avoided acting a part" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 (VII, 109), there is a note of regret here, an expression of sorrow at not having done all that it was possible to do to keep Dora. Freud is himself tempted to "act a part, II to assume the role of Herr K., to effect a tlcounter-transference, II precisely the response he warns against. in the 1905 article called "Observations on Transference-Love. n The passage cited ahove is immediately followed by Freud t s rewriting of Herr K. I S role: "Nor do I know whet.her Herr K. would have done any better etc." (see above, 47). Thus Freud juxtaposes the solution k might have found to Dora's departure with the solution his predecessor, Herr K., might have tried. It appears that Freud is identifying with Herr K., with a Herr K. who truly loves Dora, in order to express his own desire that Dora remain in analysis. The confirmation of this hypothesis is found in another text, Psychopathology of Everyday Life. In attempting to demonstrate that even the apparently arb! trary choice of a name or number is determined by unconscious forces, Freud uses the example of the pseudonym he chooses for 'Dora': With a view to preparing the case history .. for publication I considered what first name r should give her in my account ... It might have been expected --and r myself expected- that a whole host of women's names would be at my disposal. Instead one name and only one occurred to me- the name 'Dora.' I asked myself how it was determined. Who else was there called Dora? I should have liked to dismiss with incredulity the next thought to occur to me --that it was the name of my sister's nursemaid (K!nderfrau); but I have so much self-discipline or so much practice in analysing that I held firmly to the idea and let my thoughts run on from it. At once there came to my mind a trivial incident from the previous evening Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which provided the determinant I was looking for. I had seen a letter on my sister's dining-room table addressed to 'Fraiilein Rosa W. I I asked in surprise who there was of that name, and was told that girl I knew as Dora was really called Rosa, but had had to give up her real name when she took up employment in the house, since my sister could take the name 'Rosa' as applying to herself as well. 'Poor people, I I remarked in pity, 'they cannot even keep their own names!'. When next day I was looking for a name for someone who could not keep her own, 'Dora 1 was the only one to occur to me. The complete absence of alternatives was here based on a solid association connected with the subject-matter that I was dealing with: for it was a person employed in someone else I s house, a governess (Gouvernante), who exercised a decisive influence on my patient's story, and on the course of the treatment as well (VI, 240-41). 53 When Herr K. makes advances to Dora, he tells her, III get nothing out of my wife" (VII, 98). Dora knows that these are the same words that Herr K. used to seduce the governess who was subsequently treated badly and dismissed from the house. Thus, she suspects that she is being treated like Herr K. I S governess. When Dora decides to leave Freud's treatment, she makes the decision two weeks in advance. Freud responds to this news that IIthat sounds like a maidservant or a governess (einem Dienstmadchen. einer Gouvernante) --a fortnight's warning" (VII, 105). Thus, in leaving the analysis, Dora reenacts the role of the unfortunate governess and casts Freud once more in the role of Herr K. And Freud, by renaming his patient 'Dora,' the name of his sister's servant, accepts that role. In the case history, Freud translates Dora's actions towards Herr. K. into the following words: "Since you have treated me like a servant (Dienstmadchen), I shall take no more notice of you, I shall go Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 my own way by myself, and not marry" llOn). of course, means "governess 11 and not "servant," since it is a governess whom Herr K. treated so badly. The error is significant, since it allows Freud to identify himself with Herr K., to inculpate himself, for it is Freud who is treating Dora like a by giving her the nursemaid's name. The reproach that Freud puts in Dora's mouth is not only directed against Herr K. but against Freud as well. Freud reproaches himself a third time for not preventing Dora from leaving. And, just as the second reproach is inconsistent with the first, the third reproach is incompatible with the other two. For Freud cannot, on the one hand, clear up the transference by converting it into commentary and, on the other hand, become an accomplice in the acting-out of the transferential relationship. Further, he can neither play the role of the beloved Herr K., nor analyze the role that Dora is asking him to play if, in fact, Herr K. is not loved. Yet that is precisely what Freud claims in a strange footnote appended to the "Postscript" of the text: The longer the interval of time that separates me from the end of this analysis, the more probable it seems to me that the fault in my technique lay in this omission: I failed to discover in time and to inform the patient that her homosexual (gynaecophilic) love for Frau K. was the strongest unconscious current in her. mental life. I ought to have guessed that the main source of her knowledge of sexual matters could have been no one but Frau K. --the very person who later on charged her with being interested in those same subjects. Her knowing all about such things and, at the same time, her always pretending not to know where her knowledge came from was really too remarkable. I ought to have attacked this riddle and looked for the motive of such an extraordinary piece of repression. . . Before I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. learnt the importance of the homosexual current of feeling in psychoneurotics, I was often brought to a standstill in the treatment of my cases or found myself in complete perplexity (VII, 12On). Dora is not only a frustrated Pamela who resents being treated like a 55 servant; she is also a vengeful lesbian, who loves not Herr K. so much as his wife. And Dora I s homosexuality not only doesn I t make a good story, 1. t also makes for decidedly unpromising circurns tances in analysis. For if the strongest unconscious current in Dora I s mental life is homosexual, if her response to Herr K.ls advances is, as Freud says, TlMen are all so detestable that I would rather not marry. This is my revenge" (VIII, 120), then she can hardly form the necessary transference-love relationship with the male analyst. Freud recognizes this problem in his later case history of a female homosexual. Discovering that "nothing resembling a transference to the physician had been effected," or, to be more exact, that the patient IItransferred to me the sweeping repudiation of men which had dominated her," Freud "broke off the treatment and advised her parents that. . . the thera- peutie procedure . should be continued by a woman doctor" (XVIII, 164). If this is true for Dora's case as well, then the analysis is broken off, remains incomplete, fragmented, for the same reason that Freud IS "fine poetic conflict" is disturbed: he is unable to master Dora's homosexual! ty. The Compulsion to Repeat. If, in our discussion of form, we were led to suspect that the "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria" is itself a hysterical text. we can now begin to understand the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 reasons. Freud does not want Dora to leave. That is why he reproaches himself for not discovering the transference in time, for not himself playing a role, for underestimating Dora's lDnDsexual tendencies. That 1s why he tl;'ies to master Dora's story by becoming a Dichter, by crea- ting happy endings, by r w r i t i n ~ the roles of the characters. That is, in fact, why Freud writes the case history in the first place, and why his text has such a peculiar form. For there 1s every indication that Freud has undergone a trauma, and that, in writing of this trauma, he is repeating it in order to master it. Let us look more closely at the "Postscript" to the Dora case, where Freud discusses the phenomenon of transference. He writes: What are transferences? They are new editions or facsimiles of the impulses and phantasies which are aroused and made conscious during the progress of the analysis. Some of these transferenc.es have a contant wMch differs from that of their model in no respect whatever except for the substitution. These then --to keep the same metaphor-- are merely new impressions or reprints. Others are more ingeniously constructed; their- content has been subjected to a moderating influence and they may even become conscious, by cleverly taking advantage of some real peculiari ty. in the physician's person or circumstances and attaching themselves to that. These, then, will no longer be new impressions, but revised editions (VII, 116). Freud uses an extended metaphor to define "transferences," even drawing our attention to the fact that it is a metaphor. Transferences are the reimpressions or tbe reeditions, in short, the repetition, of earlier, often Mdden, texts. Now, this passage appeal's in the IIPostscript" to the case history, a case history which had been written four yeal's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 earlier, stored away in a drawer until Freud finally decides to finish and publish it. This "Postscript ll begins with the following words: "It is true that I have introduced this paper as a fragment of an analysis; but the reader will have discovered that it is incomplete to a far greater degree than its title might have led him to expect" (VII, 112). Freud goes on to repeat the same excuses for the text's incompleteness that he had already given in the "Prefatory Remarks." He repeats them at length, for more than two pages, as if he had not already explained it all to us. One cannot fail to notice that the metaphor Freud uses to define transference applies rather directly to his "Postscript"; it, too, is the repetition of an earlier, previously hidden text. Can a text be a transference as well as the other way around? Freud repeats Dora's analysis, repeats, as we saw, her disingenuousness. her vengefulness towards her audience, repeats the fragmented form of her life story in the fragment of a case history. Freud's text is a transference, or, to be more exact, it is the compulsion to repeat Dora's transference. Freud's text remains a fragment (Bruchstiick) because the analYSis is broken off (unterbrochen). and the analysis is broken off because Freud fails to master Dora IS transference.1 2 The entire text reenacts the failed analysis: Freud ~ Dora in an effort to take control of her story. to master her, to take the active role in her departure. ~ l h . e n Dora leaves. Freud does nothing. But within the next two weeks, he writes a text. a fragment of an analysis. He mistreats his audience, hurling accusations at them, just as Dora mistreated him. He writes a story with a happy ending, or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 two t or three, anything to keep Dora from leaving him again, from leaving the analysis in fragments. He explains repeatedly why his text is only a fragment in an attempt to convert this repetition into a commentary, a mastery of the repetition. Four years later, Freud again takes up his "Fragment"; he writes of transference, of what he should have done to master the transference; he writes another happy ending, mastering transference this time, mastering repetition itself. Freud repeats. He repeats the analysis, but this time it is he who is Dora and his audience who is Freud, the analyst who is left behind, who must look on passively as Dora leaves. Freud repeats without mastery, no more able to effect a cure in himself than in his patient Dora. And in repeating the analysis, Freud's "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria ll becomes, at the limit, an autobio- graphical text. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 CHAPTER III THE GENEALOGY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS Foundations. Ernest Joues' Life and Work of Sigmund Freud reports that the writing of The Interpretation of Dreams was so intimately connected with the first years of Freud's self-analysis that "one may legitimately bracket the two together. "I Freud embarked upon the self-analysis in 1897 as a means of coping with the experience of his father's death. Thus, The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud's "magnum opus," toward which he showed the greatest confidence and considerable afecti.on, is closely associated with the death of Jakob Freud and the son's reaction to it. Jones does not, however, ligive any account of the contents of such a wide-embracing book" in his biography since "it is the best known and most widely read of all Freud's works, and one cannot imagine anyone who is not familiar with it wishing to read a biography of him. ,,2 Let us not assume too hastily that we are "familiar" with The Interpretation of Dreams, that we have read it, or that we truly "know" it. What can it mean, for when the text that establishes Freud as the father of psychoanalysis issues from a work of mourning (Trauerarbeit) brought on by the father's death? To assume that we can already answer that question is to close the matter too quickly; it is to close the covers of a book that may have more to say about Jones I Life and Work of Sigmund Freud than the biography says about .Th!.. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 Interpretation of Dreams. For in a sense, Jones' biography -the entire problem of biography and autoblography-- is already contained wi thin Freud's text. The Interpretation of Dreams, for example, provides a c01llDlentary of the dedication to Jones' book: "To Anna Freud, True Daughter of an Immortal Sire. II Since immortality and its relation to the si.ring of true sons and daughters are the subject of some of the oddest and most difficult passages in Freud's text, Jones' dedication may be understood within that problematic. The three aspects that Jones bas isolated -the death of Freud's father, the self-analysis, and the writing of a magnum. opus-- not only form. the foundations of the science of psycho- analysis, they also appear as major themes !It Freud's texts. Freud's writings reflect upon the problem of founding a science OIl the basis of a self-analysis and consider the question of a magnum. opus that will guarantee his immortality. In other words, these three apparently simple terms that Jones ''brackets together" constitute Freud's auto- biographies. Do we understand them as well as we believe? Screen(ed) Memories The Rhetoric of Memory. What, for example, is a self-analysis? Jones replies that it was Freud's "most heroic feat What indomitable courage, both intellectual and moral, must have been needed!,,3 Freud's own answer is considerably less lofty; it is, in fact, as down-to-earth as a pun or a play on words, and the effect is equally comic. In "Screen Memories" (1898), an essay with considerable Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 significance for the theory of autobiography t Freud illustrates his discussion with a disguised autobiographical example that stages his own self-analysis. The content of the example is not indifferent, nor does it merely illustrate Freud' 8 thesis. The personal and the theoretical are inextricably linked, and the autobiographical moment reveals the founding gesture of the text itself. Freud begins by distinguishing between two kinds of memory: memory as "a connected chain of events," usually beginning between the ages of six and ten; and the "isolated recollections" of earliest childhood which nare often of dubious or enigmatic importance" (III, 303). Freud is particularly interested in this second group. He notes that there are some people whose earliest recollections of childhood are concerned with everyday and indifferent events which could not produce any emotional effect even in children, but which are recollected (too clearly, one is inclined to say) in every detail, contemporary events, even if, on the evidence of their parents, they moved them intensely at the time, have not been retained in their memory (III, 305-06). Such memories seem to argue against our assumption that we remember what is important to us and forget what is indifferent. Even more surprising, these recollections often have a sharpness and clarity of detail that are missing from other memories. Freud goes on to cite two examples from a survey on memory carried out by two French researchers, V. and C. Henri: first, of a philology professor Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. whose earliest memory, dating back to between the ages cf three and four, showed him a table laid for a meal and on it a basin of ice. At the same period there occurred the death of his grandmother which, according to his parents, was a severe blow to the child. But the professor of philology. has no recollection of this bereavement (III, 306). "Another man," Freud continues; "reports that his earliest memory is an episode upon a walk in which he broke off a branch from a tree. There were several other people present, and one of them helped him" (III, 306). 62 Freud does not immediately attempt to interpret the examples, but he does explain that such impressions, "screen memories" (Deckerinnerungen) as he cal1s them, acquire their significance by virtue of their to more important experiences, which, through have been obliterated. Two psychical forces oppose each other in this process: One of these forces takes the importance of the experience as a motive for seeking to remember it, while the other --a resistance-- tries to prevent any such preference from being shown. These two opposing forces do not cancel each other out .. Instead, a compromise is brought about. What is recorded as a mnemic image is not the relevant experience i taelf. . . [but rather] another psychical element closely associated with the objectionable one (III, 307). In other words, the indifferent impression is retained as a memory, not on account of its own content but Itdue to the relation holding between [this} content and a different one which has been suppressed" (III, 307) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 The relation, in this case. is one of "contiguity,,4: "The essential elements of an experience are represented in memory by the inessential elements of the same experience" (III, 307). To illustrate the functioning of screen memories. Freud draws upon "a common saying among us about shams, that they are not made of gold themselves but have lain beside something that ~ made of gold" (III, 307). This is no different from the rhetorical figure of metonymy, which substitutes "crown" for limon arch" because a crown happens to be associated with a ruler. ~ The screen memory. then, is a trope. Rather than pausing here to consider the consequences of this insight for a theory of autobiography, we shall take Freud I s cue and consider a detailed example. For at this point in the text, Freud, no longer satisfied with generalities, interrupts the theoretical portion of his essay in order to provide us with an example which, he claims, is particularly well-suited to his purposes. "Its value," says Freud," is certainly increased by the fact that it relates to someone who is not at all or only very slightly neurotic" (III, 309). This well-chosen example, however, does not simply illustrate the theoretical discussion that precedes it; as we shall see, it introduces a new kind of screen memory, one in which the relation between the screen and the suppressed material is not metonymic, but allegorical. The example begins like many of Freud I s case histories; the author introduces the patient to his readers. The patient is Tla man of university education, aged thirty-eight .... He has taken an interest Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 in psychological questions ever since I was able to relieve him of a slight phobia by means of psycho-analysis" (llI, 309). The patient has studied the Henris' investigations on memory and this prompts him to relate a screen memory of his own: The scene appears to me fairly indifferent and I cannot understand why it should have become fixed in my memory. Let me describe it to you. I see a rectangular, rather steep;ty sloping piece of meadow-land, green and thickly grown; in the green there are a great number of yellow flowers -evidently common dandelions. At the top end of the meadow there is a cottage and in front of the cottage door two women are standing chatting busily, a peasant-woman with a handkerchief on her head and a children I s nurse.. Three children are playing in the grass. One of them 1s myself (between the age of two and three); the two others are my boy cousin, who is a year older than me, and his sister, who is almost exactly the same age as I am. We are picking the yellow flowers and each of us is holding a bunch of flowers we have already picked. The Utt1e girl has the best bunch; and, as though by mutual agreement, we --the two boys- fall on her and snatch away her flowers. She runs up the meadow in tears and as a consolation the peasant""'Woman gives her a big piece of black bread. Hardly have we seen this than we throw the flowers away, hurry to the cottage and ask to be given some bread too. And we are in fact given some; the peasant-woman cuts the loaf with a long knife. In my memory the bread tastes quite de1iciQus -and at that point the scene breaks off (III, 311). "Now, II the patient asks Freud, "what is there in this occurrence to justify the expenditure of memory which it has occasioned me?" (III, 311). Freud answers with another question, asking since when he had been occupied with this recollection: whether he was of opinion that it had recurred to his memory periodically since his childhood, or whether it had perhaps emerged at some later time on some occasion that could be recalled (III, 312). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Thus prompted, the patient continues: It seems to me almost a certainty that this childhood memory never occurred to me at all in my earlier years. But I can also recall the occasion which led to my recovering this and many other recollections of my earliest childhood. When I was seventeen and at my secondary school, I returned for the first time to my birthplace for the holidays. I was the child of people who were originally well-to-do and who, I fancy, lived comfortably enough in that little corner of the provinces. When I was about three, the branch of industry in which my father was concerned met with a catastrophe. He lost all his means and we were forced to leave the place and move to a large town. Long and difficult years followed . I never felt really comfortable in the town .. Those holidays, when I was seventeen, were my first holidays in the country . I could compare the comfort reigning there with our own style of living at home in the town. But it is no use evading the subj e"ct any longer: I must admit that there was something else that excited me powerfully. I was seventeen, and in the family where I was staying there was a daughter of fifteen, with .whom I immediately fell in love but I kept it completely secret. After a few days the girl went off to her school. . . I passed many hours in solitary walks through the lovely woods and spent my time building castles in the air. These, strangely enough, were not concerned wi th the future but sought to improve the past. If only the smash had not occurred! If only I had stopped at home and grown up in the COtmtry and grown as strong as the young men in the house, the brothers of my love I And then if only I had followed my father's profession and if I had finally married her -for I should have known her intimately all those years! The patient concludes by noting that the woman, whom he sees occasionally is quite exceptionally indifferent to me. Yet I can remember quite well for what a long time afterwards I was affected by the yellow colour of the dress she was wearing when we first met, whenever I saw the same colour anywhere else (III, 312-13). 65 Freud now begins his interpretation by referring this last statement to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 a passing remark the patient had made in relating the screen memory. to the effect: that be no longer liked the common dandelion. Do you not suspect that there may be a connection between the yellow of the girl's dress and the ultra-clear yellow of the flowers in your childhood scene? (III, 313) The patient agrees, then continues the story he has been relating: I now come to a second occasion which stirred up in me the impressions of my childhood .. I was seventeen when I revisited my birthplace. Three years later during my holidays I visited my uncle and met once again the children who had been my first playmates, the same two cousins, the boy. and the girl. who appear in the childhood scene with the dandelions (III, 314). "And did you once more fall in love," Freud "--with your cousin this time?11 No, this time things turned out differently. By then I was at the University and I was a slave to my books .. But I believe that my father and my uncle had concocted a plan by which I was to exchange the abstruse subject of my studies for one of more practical value, settle down, after my studies were completed, in the place where my uncle lived, and marry my cousin . It was not until later, when I was a newly-fledged man of science and hard pressed by the exigencies of life .. that I must have reflected that my father had meant well in planning this marriage for me (III, 314),. With this additional information, Freud is able to construct the meaning of the screen memory: The element on which you put most stress in your childhood scene was the fact of the country-made bread tasting so delicious ... This idea . corresponded to your phantasy of the comfortable life you would have led if you had stayed at home and married this . . or, in symbolic language, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of how sweet the bread would have tasted for which you had to struggle so hard in your later years. The yellow of the flowers, too, points to the same girL But there are also elements in the childhood scene which can only be related to the second phantasy --of being married to your cousin. Throwing away the flowers in exchange for bread strikes me as not a bad disguise for the scheme your father had for you: you were to give up your unpractical ideals and take on a 'bread-and-butter' occupation (Brotstudium), were you not? (III, 315) 67 In this example, unlike the metonymic screen memory Freud discusses in the first portion of the essay, the screen memory 1s separated in time from what it disguises. Furthermore, the suppressed material is here not a memory, but a fantasy. The early childhood memory functions as an allegory for "the most momentous turning-points" in the patient's life, and symbols --bread and flowers-- represent "the influence of the two most powerful motive forces --hunger and love" (III, 316). Once Freud has explained t i s ~ the patient goes on to add that the essence of [the screen memoryJ is its representation of love. Now I understand for the first time. Think for a moment! Taking flowers away from a girl means to deflower her (einem M3dchen die Blume wegnehmen, das heiBt 1a: deflorieren). What a contrast between the boldness of this phantasy and my bashfulness on the first occasion (III, 316). As Freud explains, it is this last "coarsely sensual" element of the fantasy that accounts for the formation of the screen memory. In order for a screen memory to be formed, there must be some resistance to the material's finding more direct expression. Af ter they have discerned the meaning of the screen memory, Freud and his patient turn to consider its "genuineness." Freud admits that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 tlthere is in general no guarantee of the data produced by our memory. II and compares the unconscious construction of such memories to ''works of fiction" (III, 315). Nevertheless, he grants the possibility that the memory is genuine: If so, you selected it from innumerable others of a similar or another ldnd because, on account of its content (which in itself was indifferent) it was well adapted to represent the two phantasies, which were important enough to you (III, 315). It is not the question of authenticity that distinguishes screen memories from other recollections: a screen memory mayor may not be fictional. What matters is the added meaning that the memory has taken on, its ability to function as an allegory. This may entail a reworking of the childhood memory; the details may be IIremodeUed" (III, 315) to better su1t the thoughts seeking expression. The patient however, is not convinced by Freud.' s argument and suspects that the scene "has been unjustifiably smuggled in among my h i l d h ~ o d memories" (III, 318). At this paint, the analyst "must take up the defence of its genuineness; pointing out that it contains elements which have not been solved by what you have told me and which do not 1n fact fit in with the sense uquired by the phantasy. For instance, your boy cousin helping you to rob the little girl of her flowers -can you make any sense of the idea of being helped in deflowering someone? So the phantasy does not coincide completely with the childhood scene. It is only based on it at certain points. That argues in favour of the childhood memory being genuine (III, 318-19). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A certain effet du reel. a porti.on of the impression that seems to resist an allegorical interpretat1ou. witnesses for the memory1s authent:l.c:i ty. 69 At the end of their discussion, Freud and Ms patient decide to "amuse themselves ll by interpreting the two short examples of screen memories taken from the Henris I study. They can make nothing of the basin of ice on the dinner table, but conclude that the second example, of the man who pulled off the branch of a tree, is probably a mastur- bation fantasy. In a reversal of roles, it is the patient who explains that "what provides the intermediate step between a screen memory and what it conceals is likely to be a verbal expression" (III, 319). In this case. the expression lito pull one out" (aleb eben ausreiBen), a vulgar term for lito masturbate," is represented as a concrete image. Memory and Autobiographies. In his concluding remarks, 'Freud nuances the distinction he had earlier made between "screen memories" and other sorts of recollections. These final reflections cannot fail to affect any theory of autobiography that assumes that the writer's task is to shape the raw material of his memories into a coherent, aesthetic form. For what Freud proceeds to demonstrate is that memories, .!ll. memories, are already a product of such a shaping activity. Opposing the "simple view" that screen memories are an exceptional case and that most memories "arise simultaneously with an experience as an immediate consequence of the impression it makes and that thereafter they recur from time to time in accordance with the familiar laws of reproduction," Freud points out that certain features of memories lido Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 not tally with this view" (III. 321). Most importantly, it seems that in the majority of signif:l.cant and in other respects unimpeachable. c:hUdhood scenes the subj ect sees himself in the recollect1o11 as a child, with the knowledge that this child is bimself; he Bees this child, however, as an observer fr01l1 outside the scene would see him. Now it is ev:f.dent that such a picture cannot be an exact repetition of the impression that was originally received. For the subj ect was then in the middle of the situation and was attending not to himself but to the external world (III, 321). We are no longer speaking of screen memories in the strict sense. These are rather "s:l.gn1ficant" and "unimpeachable" childhood memories, yet they share with screen memories the quality of being formed, given a plastic form, at a later period. This contrast between the acting and the recollecting ego may be taken as evidence that the original impression has been worked over. It looks as though a memory-trace from childhood had here been translated back into a plastic and visual form at a later date -the date of the memory's a'l'ousal. But no reproduction of the original impression has ever entered the subject's consciousness (III, 321). Mnemic images are not photographic copies of an original impression; they are rather psychic constructions that shape and give a visual form to memory-traces. This fact breaks down the distinction Freud draws at the beginning of his essay, between SC'l'een memories and other childhood recollections. He goes so far as to inquire "whether we have any memories at all from our childhood: memories relating to our childhood may be all that we possess" (III, 322). Furthermore, such memories "show us our earliest years not as they were but as they appeared at the later periods when Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 the memories were aroused," that is, when they were formed. And, he adds, "a number of motives, with no concern for historical accuracy, had a part in forming them, as well as in the selection of the memories themselves" (III, 322). This final eouflation of screen memories with memory-formation in general casts a different light on the project of writing an auto- biography. Most importantly, it suggests that autobiographies, the process of making sense of one 1 s life, begins long before the planning, wri ting, or cotmIlunica ting of a text. Memories are not the raw uta terial that must be refined, organized, and represented in textual form; they are themselves already a text, an effect of organization, selection, signification, and (internal) visual representation. The formation of memories is already a means of making sense, and the sense one assigns to one I s life determines both the form and the content of conscious memories. Thus, memories are already works of fiction: the metonymic or allegorical--tropological--structure of screen memories extends, to a certain degree, to all memories. The making of fictions is then not restricted to the literary writer but is a fundamental human activity, essential in the constituting of selfhood or identity. This is not to say, of course, that the written or oral autobiography is then merely a reproduction of the autobiographies of memory. There are further distortions, censorships, organizing movements, and aesthetic effects at work in this transformation of memory into text. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 No doubt this is analogous to the transformation of dream-images into the language the dreamer uses in waking life to report the dream. In effect, in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud answers the objection that what we remember of a dream "has been mutilated by the untrust- worthiness of our memory" and may be Tlnot only fragmentary but positively inaccurate and falsified" (V, 512), by explaining that, though this may be true enough, the distortions involved are, first, only the last in a series of distortions, and second, by no means arbitrary. The dream is already a product of distortion; the Traumarbeit condenses, displaces, censors, snd distorts the dream- thoughts. But this distortion is not arbitrary; it reveals the dream- thoughts in the very attempt to conceal them. In the same way, lithe modifications to which dreams are submitted under the editorship of waking life are associatively linked to the material which they replace, and serve to show us the way to that material, which may in its turn be a substitute for something else" (V, 515). In fact, Freud adds, when he finds a patient' 5 account of a dream particularly hard to follow, he asks him to repeat it. The patient rarely uses the same words the second time; but it is precisely the parts of the account that he alters that tips Freud off. "Under pressure of the resistance . he hastily covers the weak spots in the dream's disguise by replacing any expressions that threaten to betray its meaning by other less revealing ones. In this way he draws my attention to the expression which he has dropped out n (V, 515). The var.ious distortions, in other words, determined as they are by an effort to conceal, reveal in their very act of concealing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 Thus, the "secondary revision ll (sekundare Bearbeitung) involved in recording a dream in simply a further stage of the Traumarbeit that produced, and distorted, the dream in the first place. It is precisely the Freudian netion of Arbeit in all its forms (Traum- and Trauerarheit, Bearbeitung and durcharbeiten)5 that blurs the traditional distinction between "original ll and "copy.1I6 If we apply this model. to the process of transforming memories into an autobiographical text, we see that an autobiography is not simply the more or less faithful reproduction of a self or a life. for the self is already a product of such an Arbeit. And the distortions involved at both the psychical and textual level do not simply interfere with an ideal reproductibility. The distortions themselves have a positive, signifying function. The selection of one memory over another and the reshaping of certain elements ~ that is, they ~ a meaning since they are determined by unconscious motives and they produce a meaning, give meaning to one's life. Self-analysis. The homology between psychical operations and the writing of a text allows for the comparison between, for instance, a compulsion and a narrative or between a screen and an example that is selected to illustrate an argument. This is an especially promising strategy in the case of "Screen Memories. II For Freud r s essay is of more than theoretical interest. Its additional significance lies in what James Strachey terms "an extraneous fact" which has "undeservedly overshadowed" the "intrinsic interest" of the paper (III, 302): the lengthy example that Freud reports in "Screen Memories" is an auto- biographical one and the lOwell-chosen" illustration is drawn from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 Freud's own memory. But this fact can hardly be said to be extraneous, especially when, as Strachey says, the notion of screen memory was "brought into foeus" by Freud's working through of this particular memory and lithe topic was closely related to several others which had been occupying his mind. . ever since he had embarked on his self- analysis in the summer of 1897 11 (III, 301). Self-analysis: Strachey attaches no particular importance to the word or to the image it might convey. But is not Freud's long auto- biographical example precisely a IIself-analysis, II or, to be more precise, a staging or visual representation of the verbal expression, "self-analysis"? And once we know that the !lonly very slightly neurotic p t i e n ~ is in fact Freud himself, can we continue to look at the essay, or at Strachey's and Jones' comments in the same way? This knowledge has a decidedly comic effect on the whole proceeding. It is not merely that Freud is literally talking to himself, holding an analytic dialogue with himself. He actually makes a point of underlining the differences between analyst and patient, both by presenting the "analysis" in dialogue form, and by carefully noting which party is responsible for the various insights in the analysis. -- "I thought it advisable to ask him since when he had been occupied with this recollection," reports Freud the analyst. "This question was all that was necessary for me to contribute .... The rest was found by my collaborator himself, who was no novice at jobs of this kind" (III, 312). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - "I have not yet considered that point, II replies Freud the patient. Now that you have raised the question. II (III, 312). -- "I see now that I shall have to tell you a whole big piece of my history, II Freud the patient tells Freud the analyst. ''You have brought it upon yourself by your question. So listen" (III, 312). - "It is no use evading the subject any longer, II confesses Freud the patient to himself, the physician. III must admit there was something else" (III, 313). - The analyst interrupts his patient nth an interpretation and the patient gently rebukes him: ''But I have not finished yet" (III, 314). 75 -- The analyst is bewildered: "In this childhood seene of yours love is represented far less prominently than I should have expected." And the patient corrects him: I ~ O You are mistaken. The essence of it 1s its representation of love" (III, 316). -- Finally, the patient is disconcerted by the analyst's claim that there is "no guarantee" for the genuineness of his memory. But the analyst reassures him: "I see that I must take up the defence of its genuineness" (III, 318). And so on. The roles of analyst and patient are carefully constructed to represent the distance between the two selves, the collaboration of one with the other. The "auto-analysis" ends with a discussion of auto-eroticism. The analyst enlists the aid of his patient in interpreting the screen memories from. the Henri survey. They consider the example "to amuse Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 ourselves" (zum Scherz, as a jest) (III, 319) t and conclude that the pulling off of a branch signifies masturbation, cor rather signify masturbation. The problem is that the expression "sleh einen ausreiBen" is German, and the subject of the Henri survey is presumably French: However, our interpretation remains a jest (Ubrigens bleibt die Deutung ein Scherz), since we have no idea whether a Frenchman would recognize an allusion to masturbation in the 'Words cassar una branche d'un arbre or in SOJlte suitably emended phrase (III, 320). Perhaps the example does not really represent masturbation. Freud draws attention to the fact that someone helps the child pull off the branch of a tree. In his own screen memory, we recall, the boy cousin helps him "deflower" the little girl. In both cases, illicit sexual activity is disguised as innocent play. Now, in the playful staging of his self-analysis. Freud the analyst has his "patient" .h!.!.E.. him interpret the screen memory, a parallel that might lead us to ask. impertinently, just what Freud is trying to "pull off," just what game he is playing with himself. Freud's playfulness in representing his self-analysis certainly contrasts with Jones' earnestness in speaking of the "courage" of the undertaking. How does Freud view his self-analysis and why does he represent it as play? We have seen that the form of Freud's example resembles a screen memory in several ways. First, it presents the self as an other, just as, in a childhood scene, the subject sees himself "as an observer from outside the scene would see him." Freud the analyst observes Freud the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 patient. Secondly, Freud tells us that "the intermediate step between a screen memory and what it conceals is likely to be a verbal expres- sion. II I have been suggesting that the example is an elaborate staging of the expression, IIself-analysis." What, then, does the example screen? i r s t ~ of course, it conceals its own autobiographical nature. Freud concludes his example by saying: "This analysis, which I have reproduced as accurately as possible, will, I hope, have to some extent clarified the concept of a r screen memoryfll (III, 320). As accurately as possible? Does Freud say this as a jest? Freud not only changes the details of the analysis (his "cousin" is in fact his nephew; most of the chronology is inaccurate; etc.), he also neglects to mention that the example is autobiographical, and he presents the self-analysis as a dialogue between two people. We may well say of this example, Freud says of memory-foundation, that simple inaccuracy of recollection does not play any considerable part here ... Close investigation shows rather that these falsifications . are tendentious --that is, that they serve the purposes of the repression and replacement of objectionable or disagreeable impressions . A number of motives, with no concern for historical accuracy, had a part in forming them (III, 322). This suggests that there is something !lobjectionable or disagreeable" either in the content of the screen memory or in the activity of self- analysis itself. In fact, both elements contribute to the formation of this "screened memory. II For the content of the screen memory is simply a mirror image of what is disguised in the example. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 The screen memory. we recall, represents a "what if": what if I had followed my father's profession, chosen a Brotstudium, married the woman my father chose for me? It represents a desire to escape the "exigencies of life" that Freud's choice of career forced upon him. It expresses the wish to be reconciled with his father, to go along with his father's plans for him. In short, the screen memory stages Freud's temptation not to break with the father, set out on his own, and found psychoanalysis. Yet Freud chooses to go his own way in defiance of his father. We have already noted the importance of his self-analysis for the founda- tion of psychoanalysis. We can now begin to see why this self-analysis is represented in disguised form as a playful masturbation: it is a defiant and derisive gesture directed at the father. It is important to remember here that a screen memory is a compromise-formation: that is, it is designed not only to screen but also to reveal, to retain as well as to repress a memory. It is significant that Freud censors his example, conc.eals its autobiographical nature; but it.is justas significant that he includes the example in the first place. What Freud reveals is nothing less than the very condition for the writing of "Screen Memories" and the psychoanalytic texts that will follow. In gOing against his father's hope for him and in refusing the love interest that his father has chosen for him, Freud can become the father of psychoanalysis. And this desire, barely alluded to in the form of the autobiographical example of "Screen Memories" finds full expression in other writings of the same period. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Interpretation of Dreams as Work of Mourning ~ On March 23, 1900, Freud writes his friend Wilhelm Fliesa in Berlin: I heard with great satisfaction that your interest in my dream-child (Traumkind) is unabated. I have now come down. on the side of being very grateful to you for standing godfather to it .. It has been a consolation to me in : ~ 7 a gloomy hour to know I have this book to leave behind This is the blessing Freud bes tows on his favoriate child, The 79 Interpretation of Dreams: it will be a comfort to its father, the hope of the father for immortality. And it is not only the theoretical insight, the originality of the text that determines Freud's affection and esteem for the dream-child. Certain "subjective ll considerations, only recognized after the child has been sent out into the world, play a part in the value Freud attaches to The Interpretation of Dreams. In the original preface, indeed, Freud expresses his uneasiness about "'the broken threads which so frequently interrupt my presentation" (IV, xxiii). One of the reasons for the fragmented form lies in the choice of material. Freud considers several possible sources of material on which to demonstrate his method of dream interpretation. Either he can discuss the dreams already appearing in published works, dreams from unknown sources; or, he can report the dreams of his neurotic patients; or lastly, he can work on his own dreams. Each of these alternatives has its drawbacks, but Freud tells us, the first Wo options are precluded entirely: the first, on account of the nature Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 of dream interpretation, which depends upon the associations of the dreamer; the second, because of certain complications that make the neurotic s dreams unsuitable as examples of the normal dream. processes. Thus, Freud has ~ but to report his own dreams, even though he bas no desire, and considerable resistance, to doing so. This argument might at first appear cogent, were we not alerted to a characteristic protest. Explaining his reluctance to record his dreams, Freud wri tea: But if I was to report my own dreams, it inevitably followed that I should have to reveal to the public gaze more of the intimacies of my mental life than I liked, or than is normally necessary for any writer who is a man of science and not a poet [Poet]. Such was the painful but tmavoidable necessity (IV, xx1ii-:1x). We have already seen in both Studies in Hysteria and "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria" why Freud's protest that he is no poet cannot be taken at face value. In The Interpretation of Dreams, too, we will have reason to consider the literary as central to Freud's textual practice. But the argument, in addition, contains a serious flaw: it presents as exclusive options what are, in fact, complementary possibilities, all of which Freud exploits in The Interpretation of ~ For Freud's text includes literally dozens of dreams reported by his patients, as well as by his children and friends. He also considers, from time to time, dreams by people unknown to him. So that the preface seriously distorts the actual content of the text. Why is Freud so intent on convincing us that be had no choice? What is at stake in the presentation of his dreams that leads Freud to justify his action with an explanation that is blatantly false? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 Freud ends his first preface by confessing that "I have been unable to resist the temptation of taking the edge off some of my indiscre- t1.ons by omissions and substitutions" (IV, xxiv), and then makes a plea for the reader's indulgence, begging "that anyone who finds any sort of reference to himself in my dreams may be willing to grant me the right of freedom of thought -in my dream-life, if nowhere else ll (IV, xxiv). Freud is in a "difficult situation" (IV, xxiv). He does not to reveal the intimacies of his life: he only wants to be a conscientious scientist and to communicate his findings on the functioning of the mind to his readers. He must overcome, as much as possible, his personal reticence in order for the work of scientific discovery to go forward. Certainly, his readers will UI1derstand his predicament and treat him with indulgence. The second preface, written ten years later, tells a different story. His readers have not been kind. Not that they have objected to Freud's indiscretions, taken offense at the slandering of his friends in the dreams he reports; rather, they have not bothered to read his book at all. They have ignored or rejected the son he sent out into the world: My psychiatric collegues seem to have taken no trouble to overcome the initial bewilderment created by my new approach to dreams The attitude adopted by reviewers in the scientific periodicals could only lead one to suppose that my work was doomed to be sunk into complete silence (IV, xxv). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As the opposition, or rather the obliviousness, to his book becomes evident, 'Freud's esteem and affection for it increase. Be explains that in the sphere of dream-life I have been able to leave my original assertions tmchanged. During the long years in which I have been working at the problems of the neuroses I have often been in doubt and sometimes been shaken in my convictions. At such times it has always been the Interpretation of Dreams that has given me back my certainty. It is thus a sure instinct which bas led my many scientific opponents to refuse to follow me more especially in my researches upon dreams (IV, xxv-vi). 82 Freud chastises his colleagues for overlooking the theoretical signi- ficence of his text; the personal nature of its content is no longer, and not yet, at issue. No longer:> since the issue was already raised in the first preface; and not yet, because it surfaces again in the next paragraph. Freud admits that "this book has a further subjective significance for me personally -a signi.ficance which I only grasped after I had completed it. It was, I found, a portion of my own self-analysis, my reaction to my father's death. ." (IV, xxvi). For this reason, Freud says "I felt unable to obliterate the traces of the experience" (IV, xxvi). The Interpretation of Dreams commemorates the death of the father and Freud's reaction to it. The material of the book, examples that ought to be indifferent in themselves, have a particular signifi- cance to Freud, since they record an important experience in his life. But lest we begin to catch a glimpse of what is at stake in the chastisement of his colleagues, his reason for being so disappointed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 that his cherished son is rejected by them, Freud immediately adds that the "subj ective significance II is only important to him and that "to my readers . it will be a matter of indifference upon what particular material they learn to appreciate the importance of dreams and how to interpret them" (IV7 xxvi). Freud tries to enforce a strict distinc- tion between the personal importance the material of The Interpretation of Dreams has for him and the theoretical significance of his discovery of the method of dream interpretation. One phrase? however, threatens to blur the careful distinction. The book, says, Freud, records his reaction to his father's death, "that is to say, to the most important event, the most poignant loss, of a man's life" (IV, xxv!). The death of the father is not simply Freud's personal loss, a loss that happens, on this occasion, to affect him deeply. The death of the father is an event of general significance, a poignant loss for man. The "personal" aspect of The Interpretation of Dreams is not simply autobiographical: it records the outcome of the Oedipal drama, a drama of mythical and universal importance, that is played out by every son. What Freud does not even whisper is that the outcome of the Oedi- pal drama may be related to the later reception of The Interpretation of Dreams, as it is recorded in the later prefaces. In 1911, for example, Freud expresses his pleasure at a IInew turn of events ll that made a third edition necessary after "scarcely more than a single year" (IV, xxvii). In 1914, Freud notes that an English translation has appeared and that Otto Rank has II contributed two self-contained Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 chapters to the [German 1 text" (IV, xxviii). In 1918, Freud mentions that a Hungarian translation is about to appear (IV, xxix); and in 1921, he explains that the sixth edition has a "new task to perform. If its earlier function was to offer some information on the nature of dreams, now it has the no less important duty of dealing with the obstinate misunderstandings to which the information is subject ll (IV. xxix-xxx). In 1929, Freud reports that his Gesammelte Schriften have appeared in print, and that French, Swedish, and Spanish translations of The Interpretation of Dreams have been published. And in the final "Preface to the Third (Revised) English Edition, II Freud underlines the important role that psychoanalysis plays in "American intellectual life ll and concludes that The Interpretation of Dreams contains "the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one's lot once in a lifetime" (IV, xxxii). "Viresgue adguirit eundo" e'And it gathers strength in going"), Montaigne wrote of his own "book of the self. '18 The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud's cherished son whom he sends out into the world, establishes Freud as the father of psychoanalysis. extends his influence to every corner of the world. The book that works through the death of Freud I s father establishes Freud I s right to call "father." That is why we should not be too quick to conclude that when Freud speaks of his father's death in the second preface, he is merely referring to a man named Jakob Freud who passed away in 1896. Such an assumption should lead us to overlook a passage in the first chapter of his book which, though it precedes any mention Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of Freud's biological father, yet already sounds like a death knell. 'I dreamt. that one spring morning I was going for a walk and was strolling through the green fields till I came to a neighbouring village, where I saw the villagers in their best clothes, with hymnbooks under their arms, flocking to the church. Of course! It was Sunday, and early morning service would soon be beginning. I decided I would attend it; but first, as I was rather hot from walking, I went into the churchyard which surrounded the church. to cool down. While I was reading some of the tombstones, I heard the bell-ringer climbing up the church tower and at the top of it I now saw the little village bell which would presently give the signal for the beginning of devotions. For quite a while it hung there motionless. then it began to swing, and suddenly its peal began to ring out clear and piercing -so clear and piercing that it put an end to my sleep. But what was ringing was the alarm-clock. Here is another instance. It was a bright winter's day and the streets were covered with deep snow. I had agreed to join a party for a sleigh-ride; but I had to wait a long time before news came that the sleigh was at the door. Now followed the preparations for getting in --the fur rug spread out, the foot-muff put ready-- and at last I was sitting in my seat. But even then the moment of departure was rlelayed till a pull at the reins gave the waiting horses the signal. Then off they started, and, with a violent shake, the sleigh bells broke into their familiar jingle --with such violence, in fact. that in a moment the cobweb of , my dream was torn through. And once again it was only the shrill sound of the alarm-clock (der schrille Ton der Weckerglocke). And now yet a third example. I saw a kitchen-maid, carrying several dozen plates piled on one another, walking along the passage to the dining-room. The column of china in her arms seemed to me in danger of losing its balance. "Take I exclaimed, "or you'll drop the whole load. 1I The inevitable rejoinder duly followed: she was quite accustomed to that kind of job, and so on. And meanwhile my anxious looks followed the advancing figure. Then --just as I expected-- she stumbled at the threshold and the fragile crockery slipped and rattled and clattered in a hundred pieces on the floor. But the noise continued without ceasing, and it seemed no longer to be a clattering; it was turning into a ringing --and the ringing. as my waking self now became aware. was only the alarm-clock doing its duty' (IV, 27-28). 85 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 The above passage 1s already a quotation in Freud.' s text. Freud borrows it from F. W. Hildebrandt for his first chapter on "The Scientific Literature Dealing nth the Problems of Dreams." The chapter 1s a result of comprehensive bibliographical scholarship, an exercise that Freud. despised and abandoned in his later texts. The conclusion of this long and painstak1ng review of Freud's predecessors 1s, in essence, that no one has come close to understanding the function and signifi- canee of dreams. In fact, scientists have not even caught up with "lay opinion," the "ancient and jealously held popular belief" that dreams have a meaning; they have failed even to recognize that dreams !B. be interpreted (IV. 96,100). Thus, in quoting the works of scientists and philosophers in bis f1.rst chapter, Freud is not unlike the subject of Hildebrandt's first dream who reads the names and inscriptions on tombstones, considering the texts of dead authors who have nothing to say.9 In the second chapter, Freud will let the bells ring out, the bells that mark the end of the scientists' dark ignorance, and celebrate the discovery of the true method of dream interpretation. Freud announces the discovery in a tone of jubilation: We find ourselves in the full daylight (Klarheit) of a sudden discovery. Dreams are not to be likened to the unregulated sounds that rise from a musical instrument struck by the blow of some external force instead of by a player's band; they are not meaningless; they are not absurd They are psychical phenomena of complete validity (IV. 122). Dreams are pieces of music, not the cacophony of unregulated blows to a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 keyboard, nor clattering sounds on the threshold of consciousness. They are musical scores that can be interpreted, and Freud's jubilation at this discovery announces the brigbtness, the Klarbeit, of day. Thus, Freud I s discovery 1s a Weckergloclce that tears through the cobweb of the scientists' sleep. But what is the relation of this jubilant mood and the impatient tone with which Freud dismisses his predecessors? What is the link between the Weckerglocke of discovery and the Totengloc.ke, passing- bell or death knell, that commemorates the passing of Freud I s ignorant forefathers? Both Weckerglocken and Totenglocken mark the passage from. one state to another, and both chime in the space the two states. As Hildebrandt's dreams show, the ringing of an alarm clock may be incorporated into the dream, may prolong the dream for a moment before finally putting an end to it. In the same way, a death knell sounds after a death but before the body has been lai.d to rest. It commemorates, keeps the memory alive for a moment longer And Freud's quotation of Hildebrandt's dreams fulfills the same function. The chiming effect of the quotation marks the death of Freud's scientific forefathers. Freud quotes in order to bury his predecessors. bury them at the threshold of his book. The quotation is also a mell. 10 It is no surprise. then, that in two postscripts to the first chapter, Freud drives the last nails into the coffin and seals the tomb. In 1909, he explains that he has not extended his discussion of the pertinent literature on dreams to include works published in the period between the first and second editions, since lito continue the task Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 would have cost me an extraordinary effort" (IV, 93). Besides, few of these new works have taken into account Freud I s dream book and "if there were such a thing in science as a right to retaliate, I should certainly be justified in disregarding [their] literature. II Freud's only response to these writers is "to suggest their ,:eading the book again --or perhaps, indeed, merely to suggest their reading it" (IV, 93). Thus, Freud retaliates against his scientific colleagues by turning his back on them, declaring them legally dead. By 1914, however, the situation has turned around. The Interpretation of Dreams has at last found its audience and "has raised a whole series of fresh considerations and problems" (IV, 95). But, since Freud himself has become a predecessor, "I cannot give an account of these works. before I have expounded those views of my own on which they are based" (IV, 95). As the recognized father of dream interpretation, Freud I s own predecessors are now safely buried away. Final stroke of the Totenglocke. The Work of Mourning. The jubilant mood in which Freud announces his bringing dream interpretation to the light of day, even as he sounds the death knell for his scientific forefathers, is in keeping with the theoretical content of one of his later essays, "Mourning and Melancholia." The loss of a loved one, Freud tells us, will provoke one of three possible In order of severity these are: normal mourning, pathological or obsessional mourning, and melancholia. The term "mourning ll (Trauer) generally refers to a loss through death, though it may also be "the loss of some abstraction . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 such as one's country, liberty, an ideal, and so on" (XIV, 243). '!be death of a loved one may also bring on melancholia, but often the loss in this case is "of a more ideal kind" (XIV, 245). It may result, for example, from being jilted by a loved one; at times, indeed, "one feels justified in maintaining the belief that a loss. has occurred, but one cannot see clearly what it is that has been lost" (XIV, 245). In all three reactions to a loss, the d1sappearanc:e of the "libidinal object" is perceived as a threat to the ego and the process of mourning (or of melancholia) works to detach the self from the lost object. "This demand," writes Freud, "arouses understandable opposi- tian" (XIV, 244). Normally, respect for reality gains the day (den Sieg behilt). Nevertheless its orders cannot be obeyed at once. They are carried out bit by bit, at great expense of time and cathectic energy J and in the meantime .!!!!. existence of the lost object is psych:l.cally prolonged. Each single one of the memories and expectations in which the libido is bound to the object is brought up and hypercathected, and detachment of the libido is accomplished in respect of it When the work of mourning is completed the ego becomes free and uninhibi ted again (XIV, 244-45, emphasis mine). Freud adds that the ego, confronted as it were with the question of whether it shall share [the lost object's] fate, is persuaded by the sum. of the narcissistic satisfactions it derives from being alive to sever its attachment to the object that has been abolished (XIV, 255). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In other words, "mourning impels the ego to give up the object by declaring the obj ect to be dead and offering the ego the inducement of continuing to live" (XIV, 257). 90 We are then justified in comparing the work of mourning to a death knell. The Trauerarbeit chimes for each individual memory, investing then detaching libidinal energy, like the stroke and resonance of a bell. The work of mourning prolongs the existence of the object, but only to rid the ego of it in the end. With every chime, the loved one dies a bit; the mourner detaches himself from the object, triumphs over the object, and allows himself to go on living. The death knell tolls for the benef! t of the mourner; the work of mourning rescues him from the danger of death. Like the the work of mourn:i:ng marks the passage from darkness to light. In "Mourning and Melancholia," Freud attempts to "throw some light on the nature of melancholia by comparing it with the normal affect of mourning" (XIV, 243). It becomes evident, however, that even this "normal affect" is not entirely comprehensible; in particular, "we do not even know the economic means by which mourning carries out its task ll (XIV, 255). This enigma concerning the economy of pain makes it impossible to explain why melancholia should sometimes be accompanied by "mania --a state which is the opposite of it in its symptoms" (XIV, 253), while normal mourning includes no manic phase. 11 Freud believes that he can explain mania by comparing it to the similar 1!.Q!!!1 states of "joy, exultation or triumph" which result when lIa large expenditure of psychical energy, long maintained or habitually Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 occurring, has at last become unnecessary, so that it is available for numerous applications and possibilities of discharge" (XIV. 254). Thus, energy that has been IIbound" :ts suddenly released. In the case of the melancholic, Freud speculates, "the ego must have got over the loss of the object and thereupon the whole quota of anticathexis which the painfu1 suffering of melancholia had drawn to itself from the ego and 'bound I will have become available" (XIV, 254-55). Mania, then, represents a liberation of the energy involved in the work of melancholia. a phase of freedom from, or triumph over, the object. "This explanation certainly sounds plausible." Freud admits, but it does not explain the of a manic phase in normal mourning, which also entails a total absorption of the ego's energy until the loss of the object is overcome. "Why, then, after it has run its course, is there no hint in its case of the economic condition for a phase of triumpb?1I (XIV, 255) The answer to this question must lie in the distinction between mourning and melancholia. Freud explains that normal, IIprofound" mourning resembles in every respect but one the pathological condition of melancholia. It involves lithe same painful frame of mind, the same loss of interest in the outside world the same loss of capacity to adopt any new object of love . and the same turning away from any activity that is not connected with thoughts of [the loved one] II (XIV, 244). If the ambivalence of the love relationship is especially pronounced, it may lead the mourner (like the melancholic) to form "self-reproaches to the effect that (he] himself is to blame for the loss of the loved object, i.e., that he has willed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 it" (XIV, 251). In this instance, the obsessional nature of the self- reproaches transforms normal mourning into "pathological mourning" (XIV, 250). The condition of melancholia is even more complex. Not only does it entail a loss of interest in the outside world and self-reproaches for having willed the object's disappearance, it also involves "an extraordinary diminution" in self-regard (XIV, 246-47). Whereas for the mourner, it is the world that seems poor and empty, since it no longer contains the loved object, for the melancholic, it is the ego that seems empty. Freud explains that "the analogy with mourning led us to conclude that he has suffered a loss in regard to an object; what he tells us points to a loss in regard to his ega ll (XIV, 246). The loss of self-respect characteristic of mourning indicates that there has been "an identification of the ego with the abandoned object" (XIV, 249). In melancholia, in other words, the ego itself is split: one part identifies itself with the lost object and the other part, a critical agency, reproaches the ego that has been split off as if it were the libidinal object. All the ambivalence that the ego feels for the lost object is directed against itself. "Thus the shadow of the object fell upon the ego" (XIV, 249). Since it is this identification of the ego with the lost object that distinguishes melancholia from both normal and pathological mourning, it must be this characteristic that accounts for the manic phase proper to melancholia. The work of melancholia, according to this hypothesis, would require a greater investment of energy than the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 corresponding work of mourning; the conflict within the ego would act like "a painful wound" that draws a tremendous amount of energy to itself. When the work of melancholia comes to an end, that surplus of energy, no longer necessary, would be released in a phase of mania. Freud, however, 1s not satisfied with this explanation either and leaves the quest:lon unresolved. As long as the economics of pain remains a mystery, the manic phase of melancholia lies beyond compre- hension. For this reason, Freud finds it necessary to lIeall a halt and to postpone any further explanation of mania." At this moment of irresolution, ''Mourning and Melancholia" breaks off. In his "Editor's Note," James Strachey points out that although Freud rarely made use of the analogy between mourning and melancholia apart from. this essay, he did address the problem in an early draft. In fact. Straehey notes, ''we find [here] one of the most remarkable instances of Freud's pre-vision" (nV, 240). The passage is among the drafts that Freud sent to his friend Fliess and was written some eighteen years before ''Mourning and Melancholia": Hostile impulses against parents (a wish that they should die) are also an integral part of neuroses. They come to light consciously in the form of obsessional ideas. In paranoia the worst delusions of persecution (pathological distrust of rulers and monarchs) correspond to these impulses. They are repressed at periods in which pity for one's parents is active --at times of their illness ,. or death. One of the manifestations of grief (Trauer) is then to reproach oneself for their death (cf. what are described as "melancholias") or to punish oneself in a hysterical way by putting oneself into their position with an idea of retribution. It seems as though in sons this death-wish is directed against their father and in daughters against their mother. 12 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 The most striking difference between this early draft and "Mourning and Melancholia ll (which dates from 1915) 1s that, whereas in the later essay the "libidinal object" is unspecified, here it is clearly a parent who has died (a footnote informs us that this is the IIfirst hint of the Oedipus complex"). The draft was written on May 31, 1897. just six months after the death of Freud's father and at the very beginning of the self-analysis. Not surprisingly, Freud's first consideration of the problem of mourning comes as a result of the loss of his own father. And, to judge from the distinctions he makes in the essay of 1915, Freud's reaction to that death was not "normal" mourning, but melancholia. l3 For the work of mourning, as it develops in The Interpretation of Dreams. includes a clear phase of mania --of megalo- mania, to be exact. Ambition. One of the first disagreeable discoveries Freud makes about his unconscious when he turns to analyze his dreams is that he possesses "a pathological ambition which I did not recognize in myself and believed was alien to me" (IV, 192). This boundless ambition finds its clearest expression in dreams about his father. Freud reports a long dream he had while on a train journey. The fourth and las t episode of this dream proceeded: Once more I was in front of the [train] station. but this time in the company of an elderly gentleman. I thought of a plan for remaining unrecognized; and then saw that this plan had already been put into effect. It was as ~ thinking and experiencing were one and the same thing. He appeared to be blind. at all events with one eye. and ! handed him a male glass urinal (which we had to buy or had bought in town). So I was a sick-nurse and had to give him the urinal because he was blind. If the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ticket-collector were to see us like that. he would be certain to let us get away without noticing us. Here the man's attitude and his micturating penis appeared in plastic form. (This was the point at which I awoke 7 feeling a need to micturate.) (IV t 210-11) Claiming that he will not give a "detailed analysis" of this part of the dream but will "merely pick out the elements leading to the two childhood scenes on whose account alone r embarked upon a discussion of this dream" (IV 7 215) 7 Freud explains: "It will rightly be 95 suspected that what compels me to make this suppression is sexual material; but there is no need to rest content with this explanation" (IV, 215). The explanation may be correct, but one need not be satisfied with it, since it answers the wrong question. The important question for dream interpretation is not what Freud conceals from his readers, but what he has concealed from himself, that is, "the motives for the internal censorship which hid the true content of the dream from myself" (IV, 215). Thus, Freud reveals to his readers what he has until now concealed even from himself: the dream analysis showed that the episodes were "impertinent boastings, the issue of an absurd megalomania which had long been suppressed in my waking life" (IV, 215). After this brief explanation, Freud returns to "the material relating to the two childhood scenes which I have promised my readers (den zwei versprochenen Kinderszenen)" (IV. 215). This promised material concerns, precisely, promises: It appears that when I was two years old I still occasionally wetted the bed, and when I was reproached for this I consoled my father by promising to buy him a nice new red bed the nearest town of any size. This was the origin of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. parenthetical phrase :f.n the dream to the effect that we had boUSht or had to buy the urinal in town: one must one's promises (was man versprochen hat, muB man halten) (IV, 216). Freud had promised to buy his father a new bed to replace the one he had wetted; in his dream, he buys a urinal so that an elderly man can urinate. But what precisely is the meaning of the imperative, "One 96 must keep one's promises," that Freud appends so curiously to his interpretation? Are we to conclude that buying the urinal in the dream fulfills the promise Freud made to his father as a child? Freud tells us that "thiS promise of mine exhibited all the megalomania of childhood We have learned from the psycho- analysis 6f neurotic subjects the intimate connection between bed""Wett1ng and the character trait of ambition" (IV, 216). The act of wetting the bed 18 already a sign (a promise?) of ambition and Freud's promise to buy his father a new bed, a promise that apparently tries to compensate for wetting the bed, is in fact an additional expression of megalomardaw The compensation for the wrongdoing merely supplements the original act w Freud goes on to relate the second scene from childhood that played a role in the dream: When I was seven or eight years old there was another domestic scene, which I can remember very clearly. One evening before going to sleep I disregarded the rules that modesty lays down and obeyed the calls of nature in my parents' bedroom while they were present. In the course of my reprimand, my father let fall the words: 'The boy will come to nothing. I This must have been a frightful blow to my ambition, for references to this scene are constantly recurring in my dreams and are Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. always linked with an enumeration of my achievements and successes, as though I wanted to say: 'You see, I!!!!!. come to something' (IV. 216). Once more, there is a micturition, a reprimand, and a compensation. Freud explains that this childhood scene "provided the material 97 for the final ep:l..sode of the dream, in which --by revenge, of course- the roles were interchanged ll (IV, 216). The blind old man represents Freud's father (who suffered from uni.lateral glaucoma) and the dream. expresses the triumph over his father in two ways: first, by making him submit to the same humiliation that the son had to endure, when, a child, he was reprimanded for urinating in front of his father; and secondly, by telling him. that his son has after all made something of himself. "In the reference to his glaucoma I was reminding him of the cocaine, which had helped him in the opera'tion, as though I had in that way kept my promise and I revelled in allusions to my discoveries in connection with the theory of hysteria, of which I felt so proud" (IV, 216-17). Freud di.scovered the anaesthetic properties of cocaine and contributed to its widespread use in the treatment of glaucoma: thus, when he alludes to his father's glaucoma in the dream, he is telling his father that he has kept his ambitious promise. The father's reprimand, "The boy will come to nothing," is actually a misinterpretation of the micuturitiou, which means, precisely, "I have ambition. I will amount to something. II Freud's response to the reprimand 1s ""to enumerate his successes, which repeats the very thing that he was reprimanded for. When Freud expresses his ambition and the fruits of that ambition, he is once more micturating in front of his father. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In a lengthy footnote appended to his analysis of the dream, Freud offers "some further interpretive material, II that is, he continues to enumerate his successes for his ~ The phrase I thinking and experiencing were one and the same thing I had a reference to the explanation of hys terica! symptoms, snd the 'male urinal' belonged to the same connection. I need not explain to a Viennese the principle of "Gschnas.' It cODsists in constructing what appear to be rare and precious objects out of trivial and preferably comic and worthless materials (for instance, in making armour out of saucepans, wisps of straw and dinner rolls) -a favourite pastime at bohemian parties here in Vienna. I had observed that this is precisely what hysterical subjects to: alongside what has really happened to them, they unconsciously build up frightful or perverse imaginary events which they construct out of the most innocent and everyday materlal:,of their experience. It is to these phantasies that their symptoms are in the first instance attached and not to their recollections of real events, whether serious or equally innoc.ent. This revelation had helped me over a nmnber of difficulties and had given me particular pleasure. What made it possible for me to refer to this by means of the dream-element 'male urinal' was as follows. I had been told that at the latest 'Gsc.hnas'-night a poisoned chalice belonging to Lucrezia Borgia had been exld.bited; its c.entral and principal constituent"had been a male urinal of the type used in hospitals (IV, 217). 98 Thus, the "male urinal" alludes to one of Freud's achievements, the discovery that the functioning of hysteria resembles the "principle of 'Gschnas.'" This principle would seem to apply equally to the formation of dreams. sinc.e they too take the indifferent impressions of the "dream-day" (the day preceding the night of the dream) and fashion them into a dream language that expresses significant conflicts in the dreamer's 1:Lfe. In fact, ~ is a rather apt description of .Th!. Interpretation of Dreams itself, a magnum opus built out of auto- biographical incidents and apparently absurd dreams. We already know Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 that Freud's understanding of the functioning of dreams was also a revelation that "helped me over a number of difficulties and had given me particular pleasure." In a more direct way, the dream-element "cocaine" alludes to the writing of The Interpretation of Dreams. This allusion is spelled out 1n another dream Freud reports; I had written a mnosraph on a certain plant. The book 18 before me I was at the moment turnin over a folded col e. Bound in each co there was the lant as thou h it had been r a um (IV, 169). In his lengthy analysis of the dream, Freud explains that "I really !!!!!. written sOUlething iil the nature af a monograph on a p1ant. namely a dissertation of the coca-plant" (IV, 170). He goes on to tmderline the importance that this discovery had in his father's glaucoma operation. The very next element alludes to The Interpretation of I saw the monograph which I bad written lying before me. This again led me back to something. I had had a letter from my friend (Fliess) in Berlin the day before in which he had shown his power of visualization: I I am very much occupied with your dream-book. I see it lying finished before me and I see myself turning over its pages.' How much I envied him his gift as a seer! If only I could have seen it lying finished before me! (IV, 172:- Strachey's brackets) Thus, the dream. expresses his wish to see The Interpretation of Dreams finished, to add this contribution to the one he had already made on cocaine. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The dream-element "coloured plate, II in addition, alludes to two memories that combine the idea of "book" with "father." The first episode occurred during Freud' 8 early childhood: It had once amused my father to hand over a book with coloured plates for me and my eldest sister to destroy. The picture of the two of us blissfully pulling the book to pieces. was almost the only plastic memory that I retained from that period of my life. I had recognized that the childhood scene was a 'screen memory' for 'Illy later bibliophile propensities (IV t 172-73). 100 In the early scene, the father actually encourages his son's interest in books (in reading and wr1 ting them but especially, in destroying them. Freud adds parenthetically thbt this was "not easy to justify from the educational point of view. 1f Yet Freud's treatment of books by other authors, in the first chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams, for instance, indicates that Freud had learned his lesson well.) In the later scene, dating from his adolescence, Freud reports that his father was not always amused at his son's interest in books: ''When I was seventeen I had run up a largish account at the bookseller's and had nothing to meet it with; and my father had scarcely taken it as an excuse that my inclinations might have chosen a worse outlet" (IV, 173). Freud is reprimanded for having too much to do with books; since it is through books that Freud will realize his ambitions, we again have a parallel to the m:f.cturition scene. The conflict over books also recalls the situation reported in "Screen Memories," where Freud goes against his father's wishes and continues his studies. In that instance, it is clear that the "worse outlet" that his adolescent Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 "inclinations" might have found is the company of women. It appears that the choice for Freud is often between love and books (his means of achieving 8mb! tion) In case he has not given us enough clues to indicate that the botanical monograph dream expresses his defiant wish to prove to his father that he has amounted to something by writing The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud concludes the discussion by saying: I can assure my readers that the ultimate meam.ng of the dream, which I have not disclosed, is intimately related to the subject of the childhood memory of my father, when I was a boy of five, giving me a book illust-cated with coloured plates to destroy (IV t 191). I will not attempt to reconstruct the "ultimate meardngll that Freud has chosen to conceal; no doubt the concealment itself is part of the meaning. The male urinal dream is actually the fourth and last episode of a long dream Freud reports. The second and third episodes are inter- preted much later in The Interpretation of Dreams. and serve as a sequel of sorts to the fourth part. The section is entitled IIAbsurd Dreams," and, as Freud explains t all the dreams considered in this section IIdeal (by chance, as it may seem at first sight) with the dreamer's dead father" (V, 426). Here is the third of the four episodes: I was driving (Ich fabre) in a cab and ordered the driver to drive me to a station (zu einem Bahnhof zu fahren). 'Of course I can't drive with you along the railway line itself' I said, after he had raised some objection, as though I had overtired him. It was as if I had already driven with him for some of the distance one nomally travels by train (mit der Bahn fahrt) (V, 432). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 Several days before Freud had this dream, he had made a trip with his brother on a train. The brother accompanied him to the railway station, but r1jumped out shortly before we got there, at the suburban railway station adjoining the main line terminus, in order to travel to Purkersdorf by the suburban line" (V, 432). At that time, Freud remarked to his brother "that he might have stayed with me a 1i ttle longer by travelling to Purkersdorf by the main line instead of the suburban one" (V, 432). He adds that this led to the passage in the dream in which I drove in the cab for some of the distance one normally travels by train. This was an inversion of what had happened in reality. What I had said to my brother was: 'you can travel on the main line in my company for the distance you would travel by the suburban line' (V. 432-33). Freud introduces an "absurdity" into the dream by replacing "suburban line" with "cab" and makes it "scarcely possible to disentangle" the events of the dream. Since there seemed to be no reason for this confusion, Freud concludes that he "must have arranged the whole of this enigmatic business in the dream on purpose" (V, 433). This calculated absurdity in the dream should be translated by the clause, "It is absurd . " and that this judgment bears on the notion of IIfahren." This term in the dream alludes to two riddles that Freud had heard several evenings before. They ran as follows: Der Herr befiehlt's Der Kutscher tut's. Ein jeder hat's 1m Grabe ruht's. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Strachey translates: Der Herr befiehlt's Der Kutscher tut I s Nicht jeder hat's In der Wiege rubt's. With the master's request The driver complies: By all men possessed In the graveyard it lies. With the master's request The driver complies: Not by all men possessed In the cradle it lies. (V, 433-34) The solution of the riddles relies on a pun involving cOlllpotmds of 103 "fahren" and ''kommen.'' The answer to the first is "Vorfahren," both "drive up" and "ancestry." Similarly, the answer to the second riddle is ''Nachkommen,'' "follow or come after" and ''progeny.'' The dream thought expressed here is: IIIt is absurd to be proud of one's ancestry; it is better to be an ancestor oneself" (V. 434), and the judgement that something is absurd translates into an absurdity in the dream.. Freud concludes that an absurd dream often has "criticism. or ridicule as its motive" and that it is no aecident that such dreams so often deal with a dead father. "In such cases, the conditions for creating absurd dreams are found together in characteristic fashion ll (V, 434-35). The authority that the father exerts over his children leads them to resent him and to seek out his weaknesses in order to criticize him; but the "filial piety" they feel toward him, especially after his death, "tightens the censorship which prohibits any such cri ticism from being consciously expressed II (V, 435). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 In the "male urinal" d r e m ~ Freud humiliates his father by making him mi.cturate in front of his son, just as the son had been humiliated when he micturated before the father. The father is placed in the position of the son. In the "fahren ll dream, however, Freud puts himself in the position of his father: he desires to triumph over his father by becoming an ancestor himself. Freud's ambition is represented as micturition in another dream, but this time, the enumeration of his accomplishments is not an attempt to prove to his father that he has amounted to something, but rather to leave his children with a legacy: A hill. on which there was something like an open-air closet: a very long seat with a hole at the end of it. Its back edge was thickly covered with small heaps of faeces of all sizes and degrees of freshness. There were bushes behind the seat. I micturated on the seat; a long stream of urine washed everything clean; the lumps of faeces came away easily and fell into the opening. It was as though at the end there was still ~ (V, 468-69). Freud interprets: The most agreeable and satisfying thoughts contributed to bringing the dream about. What at once occurred to me in the analysis were the Augean stables which were cleansed by Hercules. This Hercules was I. The hill and bushes came from Aussee, where my children were stopping at the time. I had discovered the infantile aetiology of the neuroses and had thus saved my own children from falling ill .. The stream of urine which washed everything clean was an unmistakable sign of greatness. It was in that way that Gulliver extinguished the great fire in Lilliput . Gargantua, too, Rabelais I superman, revenged himself in the same way on the Parisians by sitting astride on Notre Dame and turning his stream of urine upon the city (V. 469). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 In this second dream of micturition, the father has disappeared. Or rather, Freud himself has become a father, a mighty father patterned on Hercules and the two giants, Gulliver and Gargantua. It 1s as if Freud had taken to heart the admon! ton of his dream: "It is absurd to be proud of one's ancestors; it is better to be an ancestor oneself." The micturition 1s no longer a defiant promise made to the father, an expression of the son I s ambition: it expresses the fulfillment of the ambition, the washing away of the neuroses, the legacy that Freud leaves to his children. This second micturition, then, fulfills the promise of the first: Freud has amounted to something, has taken the place of the father, and has left a legacy to his children. 14 This legacy is a t x t ~ progeny of another sort. the dream-child that Freud speaks so fondly of in his letter to Fliess. In yet another dream. Freud reports: Old Brucke must have set me some task; STRANGELY ENOUGH [SONDERBAR GENUG]. it rela ted to a dissec tion of the lower part of my own body. my pelvis and legs. which I saw before me as though in the dissecting-room. but without noticing their absence in myself and also without a trace of any gruesome feeling. Louise N. was standing beside me and doing the work wi th me. I was then once more in possession of my legs and was making my way through the town. But (being tired) I took a cab . Finally I was making a journey through a changing landscape with an Alpine guide who was carrying my belongings. Part of the way he carried me too, out of consideration for my tired legs. The ground was boggy; we went round the edge; people were sitting on the ground like Red Indians or gipsies --among them a girl. Before this I had been making my own way forward over the slippery ,around with a constant feeling of surprise that I was able to do it so well after the dissection. At last we reached a small wooden house at the end of which was an open window. There the guide set me down and laid two wooden boa1:ds. which were standing ready, upon the window-sill, so as to bridge Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the chasm which had to be crossed over from the window. At that point I really became frightened ahout my but instead of the expected crossing, I saw two grown- up men lying on wooden benches that were along the walls cjf the hut, and what seemed to be two children sleeping beside them. It was as though what was going to make the crossing possible was not the boards but the children. I awoke in a mental fright (V. 452-53). 106 The section of The Interpretation of Dreams in which this dream appears deals with the nature of judgements made in the course of a dream. Thus, Freud begins by explaining that what: appears to be a judgement about the the task Briicke had assigned him, the expression "strangely enough," is in fact merely an allusion to a conversation from his waking life concerning a "strange book," H. Rider In this his friend Louise N. asks to borrow a book so that she will have something to read. He offers her Haggard's book, explaining that it is "full of hidden meaning . the eternal feminine, the immortality of our emotions" (V, 453). But Louise N. is already familiar with the book and asks instead for something Freud himself has written. Freud replies: "My own inmtortal works have not yet been written." His friend then asks, somewhat sarcastically, "lvell, when are we to expect these so-called ultimate explanations of yours which you've promised even shall find readable?" This prompts Freud to reflect on the amount of self-discipline it was costing me to offer the public even my book upon dreams --1 should have to give away so much of my own private character in it. The task which was imposed on me in the dream of carrying out a dissection of my own body was thus my self-analysis which was linked up with my giving an account of my dreams (V, 454-54). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 The dream expresses a number of autobiographical themes already familiar to us: once m o r ~ the self-analysis (represented, as in IIScreen Memories," in plastic form) is a means of producing an immortal work, a means of founding psychoanalysis. The quest for immortality, despite Freud's resistance to revealing his inner self, is carried out by way of a self-analysis and its publication as The Interpretation of Dreams. The desire for immortality must pass through autobiography. Yet the self-analysis, the condition for attaining immortality, is also a hindrance toward that goal. In the dream, Freud is ~ how far his legs, which have just been dissected, will carry him. He is not sure that he will attain immorta.lity on such a shaky support. 15 Freud points out that "numerous elements of the dream were derived Tl from Rider Haggard r s novel She.. Most importantly, the novel treats the question of immortality: The end of the adventure in She is that the guide, instead of finding immortality for herself and the others. perishes in the mysterious subterranean fire. A fear of that kind was unmistakably active in the dream-thoughts, the 'wooden house' was also, no doubt, a coffin .. Accordingly. I woke up in a 'mental fright,' even after the successful emergence of the idea that children may perhaps achieve what their father has failed to --a fresh allusion to the strange novel in which a person's identity is retained through a series of generations for over two thousand years (V, 454-55). In this allusion to a second sort of "immortal works, II human children, Freud identifies with Kallikrates, the protagonist of She, who, through a series of reincarnations. retains his identity over thousands of years, continually renewing his search for "an undiscovered region" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 (V. 454). For Freud. this is the "underworld" of the unconscious. Thus, his dream. is an interpretation of a literary text, a sort of "dreamer-response" criticism that locates Freud's "identity theme" (to use Norman Holland's teriD) in Haggard's text. But this identi ty theme is here precisely a desire for identity, a desire for an immortal self that will live on, identical to itself across the generations. Freud also alludes to the female protagonist of Haggard' 5 novel, Ayesha or She-who-must-be-obeyed, the woman who has found the secret of eternal youth and waits two thousand years for her beloved Kallikrates to return. For Freud, Ayesha represents "the eternal feminine" and her constancy to Kallikrates demonstrates lithe immortality of our emotions." This last expression brings to mind Freud's own theory of the time1ess- ness of the unconscious, which accotmts for the frequent recurrence of infantile wishes in dreams. l6 This suggests that Ayesha, the guide who carries Freud when his own legs fail him, represents the science of the unconscious, of psychoanalysis, that transcends Freud's self-analysis. I shall return to this question later. In this dream of self-dissection, as in the dream of the open-air closet. Freud's father has disappeared. The self-analysis, and the nimmortal" text that follows from it. are a boon for Freud's children. Freud has become a father. But the model that Freud chooses in becoming a father is not his own father, but larger-than-life, mythical ancestors: Hercules. Gargantua, Gulliver, Kallikrates. Freud turns to 11 terature for a model on which to shape his own greatness. On the pattern of the literary epic or quest novel, Freud fashions himself Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 into a hero, the protagonist of an epic: the story of psychoanalysis. The conflict between Freud the son and Jakob Freud the father is rewrl tten on a grand scale as Freud becomes the father of psycho- analysis. Tha personal struggle is made lmiversal. In this movement from the personal to the universal, literature plays a central. role. On the one hand, Freud writes himself into literature, finds a worthy self in the heroic 1DOdels of literature. On the other hand, Freud rewrites llterature, rewrites the texts and myths in terms of psychoanalysi.s. In some sense, psychoanalysis is the translation of a literary discourse into a scientific one. A dialecti- cal relation, then, between Freud and literature: in becoming great, Freud becomes a literary hero; but as the father of psychoanalysis, Freud rewrites literature in scientific terms. Typical Dreams. This dialectic between Freud and literature, the personal and the universal, is most evident in the section of .!!!!. Interpretation of Dreams called "Typical Dreams." It is also in this section that Freud I s motives for writing his magnum opus appear in their clearest form, though couched in the language of universality. In the first edition (1900), typical dreams are considered an anomaly, almost a contradiction in terms, since "as a general rule, each person is at liberty to construct his dream-wor1d according to his individual peculiarities and so to make it unintelligible to other people" (IV, 241). The Interpretation of Dreams posits a universal grammar of dreams,. the Trawnarbeit that converts latent dream-thoughts into the manifest content of the dream. The signifiers or dream Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 elements are not themselves universal: they vary from person to person and : l n d e e d ~ from. night to night. These signifiers stem from two sources: the childhood memories of the dream and the impressions (often of the most indifferent kind) of the dream-day. In some ways, then, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams is the most autobiographical of texts, since even the language that is used to write about the self (Freud I s dream-language) is produced from. the memories and impressions of his life. In "complete contrast" to this general rule, Freud tells us, "there are a certain number of dreams which almost everyone has dreamt alike and which we are accustomed to assume must have the same meaning for everyone" (IV, 241). In such dreams, not only the grammar but the language of the dream is shared by all dreamers. Freud considers only four typical dreams in his first edition: dreams of being naked; dreams of the death of a loved one; examination dreams; and dreams of flying. Of this last category, Freud is obliged to confess that he is unable to supply a full interpretation because "I myself have not experienced any dreams of the kind" (tV, 273). Thus, even in the analysis of these dreams of universal significance, Freud must rely on his personal experience. Aud in fact, the three types of dreams that Freud does deal with reelaborate the thematics or autobiographies of ~ Interpretation of Dreams which we have been discussing. Freud first considers dreams of being naked. The dream is only "typical" if the dreamer feels ~ at being undressed and if, paradoxicallYt the observers in the dream pay no attention to the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 111 dreamer, ignore him or meet him with solemn expressions. In other words, it is a typical dream if the dreamer, like Freud in the prefaces of The Interpretation of Dreams, is uneasy about revealing too much, even while the audience chooses to ignore what he reveals. This dream, adds Freud, is accompanied by a desire to flee and, at the same time, an incapacity to do so. It would be a typical dream, for example, if, because of a bizarre "self-analysis ll that consisted in dissecting one's own pelvis, one found oneself unable to advance a step further in order to cover oneself. Freud, of course, does not use these examples, does not take the small step that would bridge the chasm between dreams of nakedness and his own practice of revealing and concealing in The Interpretation of Dreams. But what does a dream of nakedness signify? Freud tells us that the dream represents a memory from childhood, but that memory has been IIrecast in a form designed to make sense of the situation," and, a result, the scene is "deprived of its original meaning and put to extraneous uses ll (IV, 243). In particular, the dreamer's moral feelings of shame, his modest but futile efforts to hide himself, actually disguise the wish fulfillment latent in the dream, the wish, that is, to reveal himself: lilt is only, in our childhood that we are seen in in- adequate clothing both by members of our family and by strangers --nurses, maid-servants and visitors; and it is only then that we feel no shame at our 'nakedness ll (IV, 244). On the contrary, Freud adds. "children frequently manifest a desire to exhibit. One can scarcely pass through a country village in our part of the world without meeting Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 some child of two or three who lifts up his little shirt in front of one --in one's honour, perhaps" (IV, 244), Freud concludes that "dreams of being naked are dreams of exhibiting" (IV, 245). But they are dreams of exhibiting in two senses: first. as we have seen, because the shame one feels at being naked conceals the to be naked; but also because such dreams are the repetition of childhood memories, and lIimpressions of earliest childhood .. strive to achieve reproduction, from their very nature and irrespectively perhaps of their actual content .. their repeti- tian constitutes the fulfillment of awish" (IV, 245). In other words, the dream has succeeded in exhibiting a memory to the dreamer and that repetition fulfills a wish. The desire to expose oneself is also the desire for autobiography. This casts a considerably different light on the moral tone of Freud's prefaces, his efforts to conceal himself or to make excuses for revealing himself. the accusations he hurls at his audience. In this view, 'Freud's shame would express a desire for autobiography and the appeal for indulgence would be merely a plea to be noticed. In essence. Freud confirms this interpretation a few pages later. In the final paragraph of his discussion of the dream of nakedness, the first typical dream to be discussed, he notes: In a psycho-analysis one learns to interpret propinquity in time as representing connection in subject-matter. Two thoughts which occur in irmnediate sequence without any apparent connection are in fact part of a single unity which has to be discovered; in just the same THay. if I write an 'a' and a 'b' in succession, they have to be pronounced as a single-syllable '!h.' qV. 247)17 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 Immediately following this paragraph, Freud turns to consider a second typical dream, without any apparent connection to the first. "Dreams of the Death of Persons of Whom the Dreamer is Fond, TI subsection S of the section called IITypical Dreams, n immediately follows subsection Ct , "Embarrassing Dreams of Being Naked. II This is the only time in The Interpretation of Dreams that Freud uses Greek letters to deSignate subsections of his text; he thereby disguises, but just barely, the fact that he has written "a" and "b" in immediate sequence and that we ought to be able to discover a IIs ingle unity. II The connection is not difficult to find. The first two prefaces of the text have already juxtaposed the embarrassment of revealing too much and the subj ective importance of The Interpretation of Dreams as a self-analysis dealing with the death of the father. What Freud wants to reveal is the work of mourning, the death and the analysis that made it possible for him to triumph over his father. He wants to micturate in front of his readers, to reveal the mega.lomania that has made this triumph possible. The dream of the death of a loved one is only typical if, in the dream, the dreamer feels grief at the loss. "The meaning of such dreams, II Freud explains, lias their content indicates, is a wish that the person in question may die" (IV, 249). Having made this claim, Freud fully expects his readers to object, since it is shocking to think that anyone would wish a loved one to die. Freud therefore seeks out the "broadest possible foundation" for such a claim, the basis for the wish. This leads him to consider the infantile source of such a wish, and in particular, the child's wish that a sibling or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 parent will die. Having explained the dynamics of sibling rivalry J the child's desire for the exclusive possession of his parents' love, he goes on to consider a crime even more terrible than wishing for a sibling's death: IIHow are we to explain [the child's] death-wishes against his parents, who surround him with love and fulfil his needs and whose preservation that same egoism should lead him to desire?" (IV, 255). In order to explain what appears to be a IImonstrousll idea, Freud makes the observation that "dreams of the death of parents apply with preponderant frequency to the parent who is of the same sex as the dreamer: that men. that is, dream. mostly of their father's death and Women of their mother's" (IV, 256). It appears as though "a sexual preference were making itself felt at an early age: as though boys regarded their fathers and girls their mothers as their rivals in love, whose elimination could not fail to be to their advantage II (IV, 256). In this first formulation of the rivalry between parent and child, a strict symmetry is respected: the boy child is his father's rival for possession of the mother, and the girl child wants to be rid of her mother in order to possess the father. Freud follows this claim with a great deal of supporting evidence, drawn 'for the most part from observation of children and the analysis of neurotics. Based on his extensive experience, he is able to assert that, at least in "the minds of most children, II a rivalry exists between the child and the parent of the same sex for the possession of the other parent. In support of this last claim, Freud introduces a literary text into evidence. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This discovery is confirmed by a legend that has come down to us from classical antiquity: a legend whose profound and universal power to move can only be understood if the hypothesis I 'have put forward in regard to the psychology of children has an equally universal validity. What I have in mind is the legend of King Oedipus and Sophocles I drama which bears his name (IV, 261). 115 Freud calls upon Oedipus Rex not only to confirm. his hypothesis but to establish its universal basis. We are no longer concerned with Freud's particular relation to his father, nor even with an idea in the minds of "many children": Sophocles' play argues for a psychic structure of universal validity. But the movement between Freud and literature is double, dialectical,. since it is only Freud' 5 psychoanalytic theory that can account for the play's enduring power to move audiences, a power that has baffled critics and would-be playwrights for generations. Psycho- analysis has the solution. Sophocles' drama represents the fulfillment of every child's wish; Oedipus' destiny "moves us only because it might have been ours --because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him" (IV, 262). Psychoanalysis holds the key to Oedipus Rex, just as Oedipus Rex holds the key to the phenomenon that will become known as the "Oedipus complex. II Freud needs the literary text in order to establish the universality of the conflict he has been describing; but, in using Oedipus for his own purposes, Freud provides the definitive interpretation, the "deepest layer" (IV, 266) of the text's significance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 The resolution of the dialecti.e between psychoanalysis and literature is the establishment of a psychoanalytic concept, "Oedipus complex, II which is from tben on considered as a tmiversal constituent of the psycbe. Yet, when Freud moves from. the evidence of experience to the universal level as represented in the literary text Oedipus Rex, a strange thing happens. The symmetry between boys and girls disappears. Freud concludes his discussion of Sophoc1es 1 play by affirming: "It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our f:f.rst hatred and our first murderous wish against our father" (IV, 262). All of "U8,1I that is, who are men. The daughter has disappeared from consideration, and with her the mother as !!!!!.. The distinction between the daughter who desires the father and the mother who possesses him, vanishes. Only the mother as object remains. The rivalry is between men, and woman 1s the object of desire. This effacement of woman as subject occurs at precisely the moment when Freud moves from the empirical to the universal, from the struggle between particular children and parents (between Freud and his father, for example) to the universal struggle given the name of Oedipus complex. It is also this moment that will establish Freud as the father of psychoanalysis. The importance of this passage for the history of psychoanalysis can hardly be overestimated. A footnote to the 1919 edition of The Interpretation of Dreams explains that the Oedipus complex II t hrows a light of undreamt-of importance 11 on the evolution of religion, morality, and the human race. It thus assures Freud's claims to greatness and establishes him as father of a new lineage which, alas, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 also includes some rebellious sons. In a rare allusion to his detrac- tors, Freud appends a footnote to this section in 1914: ''None of the findings of psycho-analytic research has provoked such embittered denials, such fierce opposition --or such amusing contortions- on the part of critics as this indication of the childhood impulses towards incest which persist in the unconsciolls ll (IV, 263n). Why, at this particular moment, when Freud assumes his place as the father of psychoanalysis. assumes a role that will lead his sons to oppose him, does woman as subject disappear? To put it another way: does psychoanalysis have a mother as well as a father? More likely, psychoanalysis!.. the mother, mother and daughter both, the object that the father p o s s s s s ~ just as the Urvater (primal father) of Totem and Taboo keeps all the women for himself and so brings about the sons' murderous jealousy (XIII, 141-46). In that rivalry between father and sons, woman as subject has no place. The foundation of psychoanalysis as object, the establishment of Freud as father, takes place at the expense of woman as subject. Neither the daughter of Oedipus nor the daughter of psychoanalysis has a place here. tole will have to examine the results of this disappearance of woman at a later point. But we have not yet discussed the last group of typical dreams, the dream that one has failed an important examination. In our discussion of the first two groups that Freud ci tea, we were led to draw a connection between the dreams of nakedness and Freud I s practice of revealing and concealing in the prefaces, and to conclude that his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. us manifestation of shame in fact expressed a desire to expose; in the treatment of the dreams of the death of a loved one, we concluded that what Freud wants to reveal 1s bis murderous desire toward his father, a desire that culminated in Freud I s taking the place of his father and, in fact, in his becoming the mighty father of the noble lineage of psychoanalysis. Where, then, do examination dreams fit into this autobiographies? Freud tells us that the dreams generally occur when ''we feel the burden of responsibility," when, that is, "the dreamer has some responsible activity ahead of him next day and is afraid there may be a fiasco ll (IV, 274). The characteristic feature of such dreams is that one only fails the examinations in the dream that one passed success- fully in waking life. The dream, then, offers a consolation by reproducing a scene from the past where "great anxiety bas turned out to be tmjustif1ed and bas been contradicted by the event" (IV, 274). The dream assures the dreamer: "Don't be afraid of tomorrowl Just think how anxious you were before your Matriculation. and yet nothing happened to you. You're a doctor, etc., already" (IV, 274). In other words, an examination dream tells the dreamer that, despite the tremendously difficult task ahead, he will in fact amotmt to something. More Typical Dreams. The Interpretation of Dreams is one of the few texts that Freud updated from one edition to the next. The most striking difference between the 1900 edition and later revisions lies in the number of typical dreams discussed, and in the development of the notion of "dream symbolism. II Freud admits that although he Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 recognized the existence of symbols in dreams from the beginning, it was only "by degrees and as my experience increased" that he tmderstood its "extent and significance. II Freud's treatment of dream-symbols grows with every edition. In f c t ~ the section called IIRepresentation by Symbols in Dreams--Some Further Typical Dreams" did not even appear until the 1914 edition, when it was constructed from new material and from material added to other sections of the 1909 and 1911 editions. Symbolism is the one aspect of dreams that Freud had virtually over- looked in the first edition, and the one issue that he consistently has more to say about as the years pass. In the first edition, that is, Freud had discounted the "dream- books II that assign a fixed meaning to particular dream elements. He considered dream-language to be private, to vary with the individual and the dream. In later editions, however, he reintroduces fixed symbols, and, what is more, posits a universal language that is characteristic of "unconscious ideation" and common to "folklore. popular myths, legends, linguistic idioms. proverbial wisdom and current jokes" (V, 351). Freud adds that "things that are symbolically connected to-day were probably united in prehistoric times by conceptual and linguistic identity. The symbolic relation seems to be a relic and mark of former identity" (V, 352). Freud is positing no less than an original and motivated language, where signified and signifier are joined by a relation of identity. Thus, in the later editions, Freud's private language of dreams is supplemented by a symbolic, universal language. What starts out as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the most autobiographical of texts expands to include the tmiversal basis of language itself. As Freud becomes the father of psycho- analysis, the language of dreams is progressively universalized. The section on "Representation by Symbols II has another peculiar! ty: among the "Further Typical Dreams. II we find several lengthy passages quoted from Freud's followers, most of whom pay 120 homage to The Interpretation of Dreams. Otto Rank (V, 369-71, 388-92), A1fred Rohitsek (V, 373-77), Hans Sachs (V, 378-81), and Ernest Jones (V, 401) all contribute dreams to Freud's text. This friendly citationality contrasts with Freud's harsh treatment of his own predecessors in the first chapter. The later editions of The Interpretation of Dreams witness to the fact that the book succeeds at the task Freud set for it: it fulfills his ambition, makes of him a great man, transforms the personal struggle between Freud and his father into a universal Oedipal struggle that he, as the father of psychoanalysis, can uncover. The 1900 edition is a defiant promise of greatness, a child's micturition before the father. In the later editions, the ambition comes to coincide with the fulfillment of the ambition: the stream of urine washes everything clean. From this act issues the lineage of psychoanalysis. Rebellious Sons, Immortal Daughter. The Interpretation of Dreams, like the dream, is a wish fulfillment: it presents Freud as the unrivaled of psychoanalysis. In fact, however, Freud's own sons are as rebellious as he was, and the history. of their rebellion is recorded in On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement (1914). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 Freud begins by asserting that "psycho-analysis is my creation [Schopfung]; for ten years I was the only person who concerned himself with it" (nv, 7). And, although Freud recognizes that he is no longer alone in his devotion to psychoanalysis, he still feels justified in maintaining that lIeven to-day no one can know better than I do what psycho-analysis is, how it differs from other ways of investigating the life of the mind, and precisely what should be called psycho-analysis and what would better be described by some other name" (XIV, 7, emphasis mine). The occasion for these comments is Freud's decision to deal with what he terms II a cool act of usurpation" by several of his former followers, by regaining control of the psychoanalytic Jahrbuch, which had fallen into the hands of C. J. Jung. In this rivalry for the Jahrbuch7 I1psychoanalysls" functions as a proper name. Freud reserves the right to bestow the name on those worthy of it 7 and to withdraw the name and the father's blessing from those who rebel against him. Freud looks back nostalgically on the days when he was the only psychoanalyst, when "like Robinson Crusoe, I settled down as comfortably as possible on my desert island" (XIV, 22). In this "glorious heroic age, II Freud was unrivaled: he did not feel pressed to publish, was free from worries about "doubtful priority, II and had no obligations to read other publications in the field, since there were none to read. Thus, his rights as father were unquestioned and he was in sole possession of the obj ect psychoanalysis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 Nevertheless, Freud does admit to having three predecessors of sorts, three men who at least had an intuition of the role that sexuality plays in the etiology of the neuroses. Breuer, Charcot, and Chrobak, three men who command Freud I 5 "deepest respect," IIbad all communicated to me a piece of knowledge which, strictly speaking, they themselves did not possess" (XIV. 13). The fathers hand over to the son an object that they do not possess. What can this mean? Freud goes on to relate the three conversations. Breuer had confided to him, speaking of nervous illnesses, that "these things are always secrets d'alc6vel" In the second episode, Freud overhears Charcot saying: 111-1'-9.15, dans des cas paTeils clest toujours la chose genitale, toujours toujours . toujours." Freud adds: "r know that for a moment I was almost paralyzed with amazement and said to myself: 'Well, but if he knows that 7 why does he never say so?'" (XIV, 14) And in the final instance, Chrobak takes Freud aside and told me that the patient's anxiety was due to the fact that although she had been married for eighteen years she was still virgo intacta. The husband was absolutely impotent The sale prescription for such a malady 7 he added, is familiar enough to us, but we cannot order it. It runs: 'Rx Penis normalis dosim repetaturl' (XIV, 14-15). Freud concludes this tribute to his predecessors with the words: I have not of course disclosed the illustrious parentage [erlauchte Abkunft] of this scandalous idea in order to saddle other people with the responsibility for it. I am well aware that itisone thing to give utterance to an idea once or twice in the form of a passing aperGu, and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. quite another to mean it seriously It 1s the difference between a casual flirtation and a legal marriage with all its duties [Pf11chtenl and difficulties. 'Epouser lee i ~ I is no mLCOlDlllOn figure of speech, at any rate in French (XlV. IS). In other words, Breuer, Charcot, and Chrobak have failed to perform. their conj ugal duties: they have merely flirted with an idea. They 123 have not "strictly speaking" possessed the object, and psychoanalysis remains a virgo mtaeta. The illustrious parents now pass on to Freud the vi.rg:in they have failed to possess. . Freud then becomes the ~ of psychoanalysis ("Psycho-analysis is my creaticu ll ) and the legal husband. Mother and daughter are identical. As the husband/father of psychoanalysis, Freud has two wayward sons, Alfred Adler and C. J. Jung. Freud believes that Adler clearly suffers from the Oedipus complex and reports that he once heard Adler announce: "Do you think it gives me such great pleasure to stand in your shadow my whole Ufe long'l" Dominated by personal ambition, Adler is given to "petty outbursts of malice which disfigure his writings" and "an uncontrolled craving for priority" (XIV, 51). Adler's efforts to escape fTom the father's shadow even lead him to usurp his father's ideas and claim them as his own. Adler's saving grace, however, is his willingness to sever his ties with the father. In his "striving for a place in the sun," Adler leaves Vienna, severs all ties with psychoanalysis, and gives his new theory the name of "Individual Psychology." Freud concedes that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. there is room enough on God I S earth, and anyone who can has a perfect right to potter about [herumtummle] on it without being prevented; but it is not a desirable thing for people who have ceased to 1Dlderstand one another and have grown incompatible with one another to remain under the same roof. Adler's "Individual Psychologyll is now one of the many schools of psychology which are adverse to psycho-analysis and its further development is no concern of ours (XIV, 32). 124 Psychoanalysis is clearly a family matter. Father and son are no longer compatible; they no longer get along and so should not live under the same roof. The son wants to seek his own place in the sun, and the father has no choice but to withdraw the name and the blessing and send him out to do what he will on "God I S earth. n Adler at least is decent enough to renounce all claim to his father's blessing, and to simply go his own way. Jung and his Swiss followers are a more difficult case. First, they refuse to renounce the name of "psychoanalysis" (at least at the time Freud was writing On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement. Shortly thereafter, Jung adopted the name "Analytical Psychology"). What is even more distressing to the father of psychoanalysis is that the theoretical assumptions of his young son, or rather, of his son Jung, argue that the Oedipus complex, the son's usurpation of the father's place, works toward the progress of civilization. Thus, "with Jung, the appeal is made to the historic right of youth to throw off the fetters in which tyrannical age with its hidebound views seeks to bind it." But, Freud objects: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jung's argument rests on the too optimistic assumption that the progress of the human race, of civilization and knowledge, has always pursued an unbroken line; as if there had heen no periods of decadence, no reactions and restorations after every revolution, no generations who have taken a backward step and abandoned the gains of their predecessors., His approach to the standpoint of the masses, his abandonment of any innovation which proved unwelcome, make it a priori improbable that Jung's corrected version of psycho-analysis can justly claim to be a youthful act of liberation (XIV. 59). In other words, Jung's own relation to his predecessor Freud is the 125 best counterargument to Jung's optimistic theory about the progress of the human race. The younger generation does not always surpass its ancestors; it is just as likely to regress, abandon the advances of earlier generations. Freud concludes: "After all, it is not the age of the doer that decides this but the character of the deed" (XIV t 59-60). That is to say, it is not enough to be .i!:!B.S.. Freud's third objection to Jung is that he abstracts away from the sexual content of psychoanalytic discoveries, which claim that cultural phenomena --religion, myth, rituals, etc.-- are the manifestations of sublimated sexual drives. Freud once more uses a genealogical analogy. In this extended "simile," Freud is no longer the father and Jung the rebellious son; or rather, in addition to this father/son relationship, there is the comparison of psychoanalytic theories to the search for a lineage. Freud's theory posits that ethics and religion are ~ r o ~ sexual complexes, from, in a further complication of the metaphor, the Oedipus complex, the relation of father to son. Jung, however, wants to claim a more noble lineage for ethics and religion. Freud compares Jung's theory to the parvenu who "boasts of being descended Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 from a noble family living in another place" and who, when confronted with the disagreeable news that his parents live in the neighborhood and are "quite bumble people" asserts that they are in fact "of noble lineage and have merely come down in the world; and he procures a family-tree from some obliging official source" (XIV, 61). In the same way, Jung reverses the genealogy of cultural phenomena and asserts that the family-complex is a descendant of more noble lineage, a co-heir and not an ancestor of myth and religion. What occupies the place of "father" in Freud's theory becomes the son in Jung's, and the son, in usurping the father's place, claims a more venerable ancestry. Of course, this is not far from Freud t s own method of becoming a father, the f t h e ~ of the noble lineage of psychoanalysis, in The Interpretation of Dreams. Where Freud differs from Jung, however, is in the founding principle of his science. Freud becomes a great matt, founds a lineage, by redefining the notion of "lineage" itself, by revealing the antagonism of father and son, and by tracing the role that this antagonism plays in the history of the human race. Freud becomes a great man, a mighty father, by revealing the humbleness of mankind's origins .. Nevertheless, despite the primary importance that the rivalry between father and son has for both the development of the individual and for civilization at large, Freud wants to deny that the rivalry between himself and his followers has any serious consequences for the future of psychoanalysis. Thus, after his lengthy discussions of the rebellions of Adler and Jung, Freud reaffirms his faith in psychoanalysis Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and explains that such rebellions pose no real threat to it: Some people may be inclined to fear that this secession is bound to have more momentous consequences for analysis than would another, ow::lng to its having been started by men who have played so great a part in the movement and have done so much to advance it. I do not share this apprehension. Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea; they become powerless when they oppose it. Psycho- analysis will survive this loss and gain new adherents in place of these (XIV, 66). Freud is confident that: psychoanalysis will remain untouched by the 127 controversies within the movement; he is certain that his science will retain its ident:1.ty over time. In other words, for 'Freud, psycho- analysis is an ideal object that is unaffected by the errors that men IIdght make. That is why Jun.gs continued use of the term "psychoanalysis" is the most threatening of all his rebellious acts. Freud compares this use to "the famous Lichtenberg knife." Jung "has changed the hilt, and he bas put a new blade into it; yet because the same name is engraved on it we are expected to regard the instrument as the original oneil (nv, 66). If IIpsychoanalysisll names an ideal object, then it ought not to be susceptible to the sort of tampering that Jung inflicts. Freud has engraved a name on his creation and he expects the name and the object to retain their relation of absolute proximity. Only that will guarantee psychoanalysis' survival. "Psychoanalysis" is a proper name, but it is not a patronym: Freud does not get it from his father, nor does he use it to designate himself. IIPsychoana1ysis" is the name of the object, and that object Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 ought to retain its identity in passing from one generation to the next. We begin to see why Freud found Rider Haggard's..!!!. such a strange and fascinating book, full cf hidden meanings, and why he incorporated the story into a dream that expressed bis own desire for immortality. For .ID!!. is the tale of a love object, Ayesha, who retains her identity across thousands of years, who waits tmaltered by time for every subsequent reincarnation of her beloved Kallikrates. In this ideal world that Freud dreams of, the rivalry between father and son is rendered void, not only because, in the community that Ayesba rules "descent is traced only through the line of the mother, and individuals never pay attention to, or even acknowledge, any man as their father, II granting the title "Father" to only one "titular male parent in each tribe,,18 but also because Ayesha, the potential object of such rivalry, can never be possessed, but is destined to remain a virgin. It is Dot hard to guess that Ayesha, figure of the etemal feminine and of psychoanalysis, is also the figure of truth. This is in fact made explicit in Haggard's text. The narrator tells us that Ayesha, who veils her unearthly beauty lest any man gaze upon her and fall hopelessly in love, may have originally gotten the idea of the veil from a statue located not far from the little community she rules. The statue represents "the winged figure of a woman of. marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form" whose "perfect and most gracious form was naked, save the face, which was thinly veiled." Engraved on the pedestal of .the statue are the words: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 'Is there no man that will draw my veil and look upon my face, for it is very fair? Unto him who draws my veil shall I be, and peace will I give him, and sweet children of knowledge and good words. ' And a voice cried, 'Though all those who seek after thee desire thee, behold! Virgin art thou, and Virgin shalt thou go till Time be done. No man is there born of woman who may draw thy veil and live, nor shall be. By Death only can thy veil be drawn, oh Truth!' And Truth stretched out her arms and wept, because those who sought her might not find her, nor look upon her face to face.19 129 It is no wonder that Haggard's book, whose message is that "Time hath no power against Identity,,20 fascinated Freud. It supplied him with an image of eternal fidelity that fulfills his wish for a science that would survive him. We also begin to understand why woman as subject has no place in Freud's theories, and why she disappears at the very moment that Freud posits the Oedipus complex as a universal feature of mental life. For if woman is a subject, and thus involved in the same rivalry for the possession of an object, she can hardly function as the "eternal feminine," as the ideal object that retains its identity across generations. Woman as subject cannot play the role of an ideal psychoanalysis that remains untouched despite the rivalry between father and son. For psychoanalysis to be the ideal, unchanging, immortal science that Freud desires, the daughter must be identical to the mother. Freud's own immortality depends upon this immortal daughter. In a letter to Ernest Jones, Freud makes it clear that it is the name of "psychoanalysis" that will be passed from generation to generation: "I am sure in a few decades my name will be wiped away and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 our results will last." 2l Thus, the last stage of Freud's ambition is to wipe away his own name, and to leave behind only that of his immortal daughter, psychoanalysis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 CHAPTER IV THE SELF AND THE SIGN Derrida and Autobiography. The preceding analysis of The Interpretation of Dreams raises a number of theoretical questions about the status of autobiography in relation to scientific discourse, and, in particular, to the development of psychoanalysiS. Jacques Derrida I s "Speculer--sur 'Freud I" addresses these very issues by focusing on the autobiographical aspects of one of Freud's later texts, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). Derrida asks first: CotmD.ent une ecriture a1ltobiographique, dans l'abime d'une auto-analyse non terminee, peut-elle donner sa naissance a une institution mandiale? La naissance de q ~ de quoi? Et comment l'interruption au la limite de I' auto-analyse, cooperant a la mise 'en abyme' plutat qu'elle ne l'entrave, reproduit-elle sa marque dans Ie mouvement institutionnel. la possibilite de cette remarque ne cessant alors de faire les petits, multipliant la progeniture de ses clivages, conflits, divisions, alliances, mariages, et recoupements? (CP, 325).1 In fact, Freud addresses this very question in On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement: discussing two "secessions" from the movement, he admits that access to psychoanalytic knowledge is limited by the particular repressions of the psychoanalyst making the inquiry so that "he cannot go beyond a particular point in his relation to analysis" (XIV, 48). This critique applies ~ to Freud since it is he who constructed the field of inquiry in the first place. Even the most extensive self-analysis cannot uncover the unconscious: there Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 is always a part of the self that remains foreign, that is not recovered by a self-reflexion. And this remainder, these unconscious desires, f e ~ r s and complexes that Freud cannot see in himself mark his theory and become part of the science of psychoanalysis. When the observer is part of the thing observed, when a self looks at "the self, II a certain shadow or blind spot is incorporated into the observation. Derrida contends that this blind spot or abyss 1s then inherited by all those who claim Freud as predecessor. In the next paragraph, Derrida explains that, given the role that Freud's autobiographies plays in the development of psychoanalysis, "il faudratt reprendre Ie processus a l'envers et recharger sa premisse apparente: qu'est-ce que l'autobiographie 8:1 tout ce qui s'ensuit. est alare possible?" (CP, 325-26). How does this seemingly unusual case of a disguised autobiography that founds a science require us to rethink. not only the category of science but also that of autobiography? What is the relation between the "private" or even "literary" writings of an author and his scientific and philosophical texts? Or, even more fundamental, what is the relation of the self to writing in general? If, as Derrida believes, the structure of writing has a peculiarly ambiguous relation to both the self and to life, then the notion of auto-bio-graphy has to be reconsidered. Derrida's "Spculer--sur 'Freud, III which I shall discuss at length in Chapter Five, is important for the study of autobiography for a number of reasons. First, it analyzes the role of autobiography in Beyond the Pleasure Principle and its position in the history of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 psychoanalysis. Second, this analysis proceeds through Derrida I s confrontation with one of the major influences on his thinking and writing and stages the curious relationship between Freud and Derrida. Third, La Carte Postale, the volume in which "Speculer-sur 'Freud'" appears, provides a general critique of the state of psychoanalysis in France and reflects upon Derrida's place within that movement. Far from a disinterested observer of the scene, Derrida 1s one of the major participants in a quarrel over the meaning and importance of Freud I s texts. La Carte Postale places Derrida' s autobiographies within the context of Freud's legacy, and so provides a sequel of sorts to the genealogy traced in the preceding chapter. We may, then, identify three connections between Freud and Derrida: Freud is, first, the object of Derrida's deconstructive reading; second, a major influence in Derrida' s own thinking; and third, an ancestor whose legacy is the locus of a rivalry between Derrida and other French thinkers, notably psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. As a philosopher, Derrida' s claim to Freud's legacy seems less than assured and, in fact, in the last section of he speaks of his marginal position in the psychoanalytic movement. As we shall see, Derrida's strategy is not so much to assert his claims to that legacy as to call into question the notion of a legacy itself. A1 though Freud occupies an increasingly central role in Derrida' s writings, (and we shall later have occasion to examine certain parallels between Freud IS autobiographics and Derrida I s), Derrida also owes a great deal to the philosophical tradition. It is only within Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 the general problematic of structural linguistics, Husserlian pheno- menology, and speech act theory that his critique of Freud aDd theory of autobiography are comprehensible a For, although "Sp'culer--sur 'Freud'" is the most extensive discussion of the problem of autobio- graphy, it is clear that Derrida has recognized as central the problem of the self and its relation to writing from his first texts. Derrida IS theoretical framework calls into question any theory of autobiography that is founded on the notion of representation, on the sincerity of the author's intentions, the value of the proper name or signature: in short, on the integrity of the self, in every sense of the word. Furthermore, Derrida I s critique of the self has focused on autobio- graphies on several occasions. Most notably, Claude Livi-Strauss' Tristes Tropigues and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Lea Confessions are central to Derridats discussion of their ideas. Derrida follows his reading of the Confessions with a reflection on his methodology and specifically addresses the question of a "psycho-biographical" approach to philosophy. 'Freud is, then, never far from the scene: his radical rethinking of the self is a problem. that Derrida encounters on many occasions. In certain ways, in fact, "Speculer--sur 'Freud'" is Derrida's effort to face the difficulties that he had only partially recognized in the earlier texts. Thus, before turning to consider Derr1da's theo'ty and practice of autobiographies and their relation to Freud, we need to outline the general pToblem of the self and language as it appears in Derrida's other texts. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 Signs of Death: Language as Other. In La Voix et Ie Phenomene, Derrida approaches the question of the relation between the self and the sign by applying Edmund Husserl's general principles of language to the particular sign 1. Husser! argues, first, that the occurrence of a sign is not an "event" "si evenement veut dire unicite empirique irremplac;able et irreversible. Un signe qui n'aurait lieu qu'une fois' ne serait pas un signe" (W, 55). Since the sign must be repeated in order to be recognizable a sign, the is what constitutes the sign's "ideality,1I2 its capacity to retain its identity in various circumstances and at various moments. The identity of the sign is ideal, but Husserl distinguishes this notion of meaning or Bedeutung from the Platonic Idea by affirming that the ideality lin' existe pas dans Ie mande et el1e ne vient pas d'un autre monde" (VP, 58). Rather, it is constituted by the particular acts of repeating the sign. The Bedeutung is not lodged within any particular use of the sign; rather, every occurrence of the sign appears in relation to this ideal Bedeutung. Husserl argues, secondly, that the sign must be able to function in the absence of the speaker, and of the speaker's intuition of the referent. This capacity is structurally necessary for language to be language. One need not have the object present, or even the intuition of the object in mind in order to understand an utterance. Even if the referent is an impossible object, the utterance still makes a certain sense: "Si nous ne pouvions comprendre ce que veut 'cercle carre' comment pourrions-nous conclure a. I' absence d' objet possible?1I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (VP, 102,). One understands well enough to know that the utterance refers to an impossible object. But this lack of a referent (Gegenstandslosigkeit) does not indicate a total lack of meaning (Bedeutungslosigkeit) 136 Given the ideal nature of the Bedeutung. one may even say that this Gegenstandslosigkeit can occur even when the object one is apparently referring to is present. It is not only that one need not see the window in order to understand what "I see the window" means; since the meaning is always ideal, the utterance never refers merely to the particular referent or context: lin est implique structurel1ement dans man operation que Ie centenu de cette expression soit ideal et que son unite ne soit pas entamee par 11 absence de perception hic et nunc" (VP, 103). One must distinguish between the of the expression (the ideal Bedeutung) and the obj et (referent). The sign depends upon repetition to constitute it as a sign; therefore, if it were tied to a particular context or situation, if it vanished with that context, it would not be a sign. This is not only true of the written text, IInom courant de signes qui fonctionnent malgre l' absence totale du sujet, par (deHi.) sa mortl! (VP, 104), but the spoken word as well: if the words I speak are understandable, it is because they are re-cognizable, a repetition of the same words used by someone else, and repeatable, capable of signifying in the future. One must conclude that the sign is not tied to the object nor to the subject of the utterance, that it functions referent and speaker were absent: the sign exists in spite of the object and does not depend upon it; and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 it exists any particular subject who uses it and continues to exist after his death. And this capacity to function in the absence of the subject and the object is the condition of signification: language would not be language if it could not function in-the-absence-of. All this is recognized by Husser!. When he turns to consider the particular example of the first-person pronoun I, however, he refuses to be constrained by his premises about the function of language in general. Derrida explains that Husser! seems to think that "pour celu! qui parle. cette Bedeutung, comme rallPort aIr objet (Je . ) est I realisee.' 'Dans Ie discours solitaire, la Bedeutung du se realise essentiellement dans la representation immediate de notre propre personnalite'" (VP, 105-06). Derrida points out that the notion that the intuition of an object (in this case, of oneself in a moment of self-presence) could completely "realize II the use of the sign does not follow from Russerl's premises: "Est-ce que l'apparition du mot k dans Ie discours solitaire ... ne fonctionne pas deja comme une idalite?" (VP, 106). The ideal nature of the Bedeutung makes it impossible that any particular occurrence of a sign (of the sign I) completely "realize" its meaning. Derrida goes on to point out that even the sign 1. must be able to function in the absence of a particular subject, must retain its meaning !lmeme si ma presence empirique 5 'efface au se modi fie radicalement" (VP, 106). Further, it must be able to function independently of the speaker's intuition of the object, that is, of himself. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Que j'aie au non l'intuition actuelle de mOi-mime, 'je' exprime; que je 80is au non vivant, j8 suis 'veut dire' Et l' on n I a pas besoin de savoir qui parle pour Ie comprendre, nl meme pour l'emettre ll (VP, 106-07). 138 There is nothing to guarantee that when I say III, II I have an intuition of the "objet vise," that is, of myself. On the contrary, that intuition is structurally unnecessary, even superfluous for the functioning of the sign. Noting that Husser!' s own premises lead one to question his conclusions about the .1. Derrida asks: Est-c.e que HusserI ne contredit pas ce qulil affirmait de l' independance de l'intention et de l'intuition rem- plissante en ecrivant: 'Ce qui constitue chaque fols sa Bedeutung (celle du mot . : ~ ) ne peut etre tire que du discours vivant et des donnees intm tives qui en font partie. Quand nous lisons ce 100 t sans savoir qui I' a ecrit, nous avons un mot, sinon depourvu de Bedeutung, du moins etranger a sa Bedeutung normale.' Les premisses de Husserl devraient nous autoriser a dire exactement Ie contraire (VP, 107). If the 1 is a sign, then its Bedeutung cannot be simply occasional, shifting with the particular context in which it appears: that Bedeutung must be ideal. If the 1. is a sign, then one need not see or know the object. to which it refers in order to understand what the .!. means. "Quand Ie mot ~ apparait, l'idealite de sa Bedeutung, en tant qu'elle est distincte de son 'objet,' nous met dans la situation que Husserl decrit comme anormale: comme si ~ etait ecrit par un inconnu" (VP, 107). The condition for understanding any particular 1, including the 1. I use to refer to myself, is the ideality of its Bedeutung, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 fact that the .! does not refer to the particular referent, but can and has been l:"epeated without its meaning being used up. For this reason, Derrida maintains, the ideal Bedeutung of the .! has a ''valeur structurel1ement testamentaire. 1I La Bedeutung 'je suis' au 'je suis vivant' n'est ce qu'elle est, e11e n'a l'identite ideale propre i. toute Bedeutung que 81. je puis @tre mort au moment ou e11e fOIictiotiiie L'enonce 'je suis vivant' s'accompagne de mon @tre-mort et sa possibilite requiert la possibi- lite que je sois mort. L' anonyme du Je eerit, du j'ecrls est, contrairementa ce que dit Husserl, la 'situation normale' (VP, 108). It is of course clear that a written text can survive its author, that an autobiography, for example, can declare "I am alive" when the author is in fact But Derrida extends this eventuality to every instance of language, including speech and the interior monologue. Language, even the language I use to describe myself, is always other. 'When I say "I, II I designate myself with a word that does not only designate myself, a word whose meaning is ideal and so apart from any empirical object. To say "I" is to enter into relation with one's own death, since the sign.! does not require one's existence. Language and the Constitution of the Self. Language then, is always other: it pret;:edes the self, functions as if the self were absent. But is there a self independent of the sign? Husserl wants to maintain that in the "discours interieur dans la vie solitaire de l'ime," signs have no indicative or communicative function, that they function as "pure expressions. It The use of signs when speaking silently to oneself would be merely a fictional representation of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. l40 coDllllllDication, because the self has no of signs to communicate with itself. For Husser!, the subject is already in a state of perfect, immediate presence to itself. And this immediate self-presence that has no need for the sign becomes the foundation for intuition and perception in general. "Chaque fois que Husserl voudra marquer Ie sens de I'intuition orlginaire, 11 rappellera qu'elle est l'expi!!rience de I'absence et de 111nut11ite du signe" (W, 67). As Derrida points out in a chapter entitled ''La Voix qui Garde le Silence," however, nla structure de la vie interieure est i.ei simpli- fiee" (VP, 79) because, in fact, the self needs language in order to come to consciousness in the first place. Rather, one comes to consciousness through "auto-affection," and more specifically, through the experience of a "pure" auto-affection that consists in hearing oneself speak. Husserl privileges the experience of hearing one's own voice over other forms of auto-affection because it appears to combine the two features necessary for the formation of subjectivity: on the one hand, speech is "un medium de signification universelle" which consists of ideal, repeatable signs; on the other hand, this experience seems to take place immediately, "sans aucun detour par I'instance de l'exteriorite, du monde, au du non-propre." As "l'itre aupres de soi dans 1a forme de l'un!versalite," speech is the foundation of subjectivity and of consciousness. ''La voix est 1a conscience" (VP, 89) Husserl maintains that in the experience of hearing oneself speak, there is no loss of self, no need of passing through the world, as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 there is in other forms of auto-affection. In the experience of seeing oneself (a part of one's body or one's reflection in a mirror) or of touching oneself there is a loss of self involved in the coming to for the body one perceives is at first in the world, exterior to oneself. The body is first perceived as something foreign to oneself (non-propre) before being recognized as one's own. Similarly, in the experience of seeing oneself write, the exteriority of the sign makes itself felt, whereas in speaking, the signifier vanishes as soon as oDe has pronounced it. But can it really be said that the voice, in pronouncing conven- tional, universal signs does not pass through the world? We have already seen he..,., for Derrida, lila possibi1ite de l'ecriture habitait 1e dedans de 1a parole ll (VP, 92). The ideal nature of the Bedeutung makes all language, even speech, foreign to the one who uses it. Furthermore, in recognizing that the subject is produced by this particular use of language, Husserl undermines his own claim that there is a "vie solitaire de l'ame ll that can do without signs. Husserl must repress the origin of subjectivity in order to maintain this interiority of the self that 1s immediate to itself since "des qulon admet que I' auto-affection est la condition de la presence a soi, aucune reduction transcendantale pure n' est possible" (VP, 92). The "vie solitaire ll only exists as a result of the moment of consciousness that establishes the difference between the self and the world, the inside and the outside. And that moment of consciousness depends upon language. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Derrida concludes: L'auto-affection n'eat pas une modalite d'experience caracte.risant un .atant qui aerait deja lui-meme (autos) Elle produit Ie meme comma rapport a soi diIDSTa difference d'avec sOi, Ie meme comme Ie non-identique (VP, 92). Consciousness arises in the gap between self and self. in the 142 experiencing of oneself as other, non-propre. Language opens this gap, is both the condition for and the impossibility of identity. Language. as the difference between self and self, not only constitutes the subject, it also produces as an effect a desire for the presence that is lost in the very movement of coming to consciousness (GR, 100 and passim). "eela veut dire que ce desir porte en lui Ie destin de son inassouvissement" (GR, 206). Writing, and particularly the writing of an autobiography, then becomes a futile and never-ending attempt to reappropriate what was lost from the beginning of subjectivity. Derrida writes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Dans les Confessions, au moment ou Jean-Jacques tente d I expliquer comment il est devenu ecrivain, 11 decrit le passage a l'ecriture comme la restauration, par une certaine absence et 'Par un type d'effacement calcule, de la presence de;ue de soi dans la parole. Ecrire alors est Ie seul moyen de garder ou de reprendre la parole puisque celle-ci se refuse en se donnant (GR, 204). Writing tries to fill the space that speech has opened up, but it only succeeds in opening the space wider. opening the self to the decentering effect of language and narrativity. In "Speculer--sur 'Freud, ,II Derrida will call this the space of autobiography. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 Lejeune and the Subiect of Autobiography. It is important to recognize at this point that the desire expressed by Husser! for an .! that, in the interiority of the self, would be entirely realized by one's IIpropre personnalite,1I that one's identity would fill the.!, that the 1. would not be, even a little bit, someone or something else, has formed the basis of a number of theories of autobiography. It is, most: notably, the foundation of Philippe Lejeune's project: in Autobiographigue (1975). In his generic definition of autobiography, Lejeune argues that the author of an autobiography must be identical with both the narrator and the main character of the text, adding that "i1 n'y a nl transition ttl latitude. Une identite est, au n'est pas. Il n'y a pas de degre possible, et tout doute entra1ne une conclusion negative.,,3 tolhatever the differences in age, perspective, or relation to the reader, the author, his narrator, and the main character of the autobiography must remain identical to one another: this requirement assumes as its precondition a self-identical subject. We see that, given Derrida' s theory of a language before and beyond the self, a self that is "le m@.me comme 1e non-identique." Lejeune's categorical state- ment that "une identite est, ou n'est pas" and that "tout doute entra1ne une conclusion negative" excludes any possible text from the genre of autobiography. Lejeune's insistence on the integrity of a self-identical subject arises from his desire to ground autobiography in the honesty and sincerity of the author's intentions. Reacting against Bertrand- De1pech's claim that Olivier Todd's L' Annee du crabe is autobiographical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. despite the author's use of "pseudonymes transparents," Lejeune complains: S1 Ross, clest Todd, pourquoi porte-t-il un autre nom? S1 c'etait lui. comment se fait-il qu'il ne 11ait pas dit? Qu'il Ie 1a15se coquettement deviner, au que Ie lecteur Ie devine malgre lui, peu importe. L'auto- biographie nlest pas un jeu de devinette, clest meme ::c 4 If Lejeune's notion of "identity" is necessarily founded on the 144 immediacy of a subject present to itself, this is very quickly supple- men ted by an exterior sign that would guarantee the intention. The reader does not have immediate access to the author's intentions; therefore, Lejeune' makes an appeal to the institutional value of the signature and the proper name. Todd's identity with the character whose life he recounts must be made explicit by the use of the by author and character. What is inaccessible at a textual level (Todd's private intention to give a true account to his reader) must be guaranteed by the proper name of the author, seu1e marque dans 1e texte d' un indubi table hors-texte renvoyant a une personne qui demande ainsi qu'on lui attribue, en dernier ressort, 1a responsabilite de l'enonciation de tout 1e texte ecrit. 5 The empirical existence of the author who bears the same name as the narrator and the main character of the autobiography thus becomes the means of authenticating the "pact." Lejeune makes it clear that by "personne reelle, n he means a person Tldont l'existence est attestee par l'etat c.ivil et verifiable. n6 It is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 thus to a legal contract assumed by the author and guaranteed not only by the signature but by the State that Lejeune must eventually have recourse. This appeal to the law is an effort to reduce what Derrida calls the "anonyme du :!!. eerit." In an earlier work on autobiography, in fact, Lejeune was obliged to admit that "sur Ie plan de l'analyse interne du texte, II autobiography and the autobiographical novel are indistinguishable since "taus les pro cedes que l'autobiographie emploie pour nous convaincre de I' authenticite de son ri!cit, Ie roman peut les iraiter, et les a souvent im1tes. n7 In Le Pacte Autobiographigue, Lejeune is able to revise this statement and thus to reassert the "authenticity" proper to autobiography by founding it on the proper name as it appears on the title page. That name not only "signs" the pact, it also guarantees that the "'je' ne se perd pas dans l'anonymat" since "chacun se nomraera 'je' en parlant; mais pour chacun, ce 'je' renverra a un nom unique, et que l'on pourra toujours enoncer.,,8 Everything comes to depend on the proper name, the signature, and eventually, on the legal status of the subject as author. We are left with the question, however, of whethe'I' that legal function corresponds to a self-identical subject that precedes it, or whether it is itself the constituting of a legal subject. Lejeune raises briefly the problem. of the institutional function of language, only to "conjure" it away. The issue is raised, significantly, within the context of the problem of fictionality: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Quand la Bema joue Phedre 7 qui dit 'jet? La situation theatrale peut certes remplir la fonction des guillemets, signalant Ie caracte.re fictif de la personne qui dit 'je. I Mais iei, Ie vertige doit commencer a nous prendre, car l'idee effleure alors meme Ie plus naif, que ce n'ese paf10 la personne qui deflnit Ie 'je,' mais peut-etre Ie 'jet la personne Conjurons pour 1 'instant ce vertige. Ce que nous fr610ns iei .. [clest] 1 'evidence qu.;. la premiere personne est un r61e. 9 A few pages later, Lejeune in effect summarizes Derrida's theory of autobiography (though Derrida is not named), only to conclude with a remarkable statement: S'11 n 'y a pas de personne en dehors du langage, comme Ie langage c'est autTui, 11 faudra:it en arriver a l'idee que Ie discours autobiographique, loin de renvoyer, comme chacun se l'imagine, au 'moi I monnay!! en une serie de noms propres, serait au contraire un discours aliene, une voix mythologique par laquelle chacun serait: possede . S'ouvrirait alors --toute psychologie et mystique de l'individu demystifiees-- une analyse du discours de la subjectivite et de 1 'individualite comme my the de notre civilisation. 10 146 Having thus not only drawn the logical conclusions from Derrida I 5 theory of language but also outlined the project of autobiographical critique that follows from such conclusions, Lejeune stops short of putting 1t into effect, adding: Chacun sent bien d I ailleurs Ie danger de cette indetermi- nation de la premiere personne, et ce nlest pas hasard s1 on cherche a la neutraliser en la fondant sur Ie nom propre. ll Lejeune thus admits that his theory of autobiography is formulated in order to ward off a danger, a danger so real and present that one need not even name it since everyone can sense it. What is perhaps most Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 remarkable in this appeal to IIbon sensu and claim to unanimity is Lejeune IS rhetorical use of the impersonal pronoun "on ll to refer to himself: at the very moment that he warns of the danger in the "indetermination de la premiere personne, II Lejeune opts for univer- sality over individuality. Signature as Speech Act. Lejeune's conclusion about the proper name is of course no argument against Derrida's theory of language; it is merely a defensive gesture that seeks to neutralize a danger. It is precisely such defensive gestures and the desire that they express that have been the object of Derrida's critique of the "metaphysics of presence. II Lejeune's theory of autobiography is part of this meta- physics for it denies the otherness of language and grounds autobio- graphy in an entirely self-conscious subject. For, as Derrida shows in two essays on "speech act theory," the notions of proper name and of signature that Lejeune expounds are rooted in self-presence. In "Signature Evenement Contexte," Derrida criticizes English philosopher J. L. Austin for continuing to adhere to a traditionally me taphysical notion of consciousness even while his theory mounts an attack on some of the most widely-held assumptions of that metaphysics. Austin's How to do Things with Words introduces a class of utterances called "performatives." Unlike "constatives," performatives "do not 'describe' or 'report' or constate anything at all;" rather. lito utter the sentence (in. of course, the appropriate circUICstances) is not to my doing of what I should be said in so uttering to be doing or to state that I am doing it: it is to do it. ,,12 Among these Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 appropriate circumstances are social or legal institutions whose existence gives the "speech act" i.ts meaning. Austin 1 s first example is that of the words "I do" as uttered in the course of a marriage ceremony. These words do not report on a marriage: they bring one about. But it is, of course, only the institution of marriage and the laws that govern it that allow for any particular marriage to take place. In the course of How to do Things with Words, Austin extends and refines his definition of speech acts, arguing finally that every utterance has a performative as well as a constative function. As a result of this blurring of the initial categories, Austin is led to speak of the "forcel! of utterances in general: Saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or "of the speaker, or of other persons: and it may be done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them. 13 Derrida believes that Austin "a fait eclater Ie concept de communication comme concept purement semiotique, linguistique, au symbolique" (MP, 383) since IIcommuniquer, dans Ie cas du performatif. .. ce serait communiquer une force par l'impulsion d'une marque" (MP, 382). For this reason, Austin's theory is a powerful critique of metaphysical notions of language. Derrida criticizes Austin, however, for positing a notion of (on which the success or "happiness" of the speech act depends) as "exhaustivement d:finissable," and in particular for depending upon the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. conscience libre et presente it la totaU .. ti!!: de l' operation, [Ie] vouloir-dire absolument plein et mat.tre de lui-mhle: juridiction teJ.eologique d'un champ total dont 1 'intention reate Ie centre organisateur" (MP, 384). ---- For Austin (as for Lejeune), the sign of this intention, this 149 consciousness present to itself, is to be found, in written texts, in the signature of the author. Arguing against the absolute pur1.ty of the perfonaative, Derrida explains that Austin line doute pas que la source d'un enonce oral. soit presente if. 1 'enonciation et a l' enonee" and that "1' equivalent de ce lien a la source dans les enonciations ecr:i.tes Boit simplement evident et assure dans la signature" (MEl, 390-91). But, as he pOints out, pour fonctionner. c'est-a:-dire pour @tre lisible, une signature dott avair one fOTIDe repetable, itllirable, imitable; elle doit pouvoir se detacher de l' intention presente et singuliire de sa production. C' est sa memetE qui, altllirant son identite et sa singularite, en divise Ie sceau (MP, 392). For this reason, what makes possible the signature's success (its readabili.ty and its authenticity) also renders impossible its "rigoureuse purete" (MP, 392). The signature only guarantees the identity of the signer through a dependence on repetition and therefore difference (a signature, in order to be valid, must be both the "same" and different from every other signature of the signer). Derrida calls this structure, the general structure of language, "iterability." The signature is only recognizable in a particular circumstance because it is the repetition, the alteration of an earlier signature. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 the signature cannot g"..Israntee the full intentions of the since "1' absence essentielle de l'intention a l'actualite de l'enonce, cette i.nconscience structurelle interdit toute saturation de contexte ll (MP, 389). The essential otherness of language that Derrida analyzed in La Voix et Ie Phenomene, the capacity of language to function in the absence of a particular speaker's intentions, keeps the signature from fulfilling the role assigned to it, that of guaranteeing the full intentions of the author. Nevertheless, as Derrida points out, "les effets de signature sont la chose la plus courante du monde" (MP, 391, emphasis mine). He describes his own project as within a deploiement historique de plus en plus puissant d I une ecriture genera1e dont 1e systeme de la parole, de la conscience, du sens, de 1a presence, de la verite, etc., ne serait qu'un effet et doit etre analyse comme tel. C' est cet effet cause que j I ai appele ailleurs logocentrisme (MP, 392). In other words, the intention, consciousness, autonomous presence of a self that is presumed to lie the signature as its cause or source is in fact an effect produced Ex the mark or signature. The signature is itself a performative since it produces effects; more radically, it is a "speech act" in the limited sense since it consti- tutes the self aE> a legal subject. Self as SARL. Derrida analyzes the "signature effect," the juridical and legal status of the signature and of the copyright in "Limited Inc abc." The essay is a response to John Searle's "Reply" to "Signature Evenement Contexte II and it begins by analyzing Searle's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 decision to copyright his essay. According to e r r i d a ~ this decision stems from a desire to assert his own status of author of the text that bears his name, and from the fear that his arti.cle rill be stolen, plagiarized, or misrepresented. This fear, in turn, arisesrom Searle's obscure knowledge of the iterable structure of language, which makes his "Reply" not only immediately expropriable but also already expro- priated. This is especially evident in Searle I s case since he is claiming to speak the truth, a truth that, in principle, everyone has access to: 81 Searle dit vrai quand i1 dit qul!l dit Ie vrai, l'obviously true, alors Ie copyright est sans effet, sans interet: tout Ie mande pourra, aura d' avance .!!, reproduire ce qulil dit. Le seeau de Searle est d'avance vole. D'oii l'angoisse et la compulsion a cacheter . Ie vrai" (LI, 3). As Derrida goes on to show, the copyright appearing in the corner of the first page of Searle's "Reply" is in part falsified by the first footnote (appended to the title of the paper) which acknowledges the author's debt to D. Searle and H. Dreyfuss. "Voila que Ie 'vrai' copy- right devrait revenir ... a un Searle divise, multiplie, conjugue, partage. Quelle signature eomplique!" (LI, 3) Derrida adds that Dreyfuss is an old freind of his who had learned from Derrida himself: "'Je' pretends done aussi au copyright de la Reply" (LI, 3). But it is not merely the debt Searle owes to a small number of indiViduals for the ideas developed in his "Reply" that calls into question the validity of the copyright: for Derrida, what is at stake is the entire philosophical tradi tion which Searle has inherited and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 which has put words and concepts into his IOOuth: Quel1e est 12 nature du qui semble s I ouvrir iei'? Oil, tei? lei? Est-ce un debat? A-t-il lieu? S'ouvre- t-il? Depuis Quandt Deputs Platon, souffle Ie souffleur promptement dans les coul1sses, et l' acteur repete depms (LI, 2, emphasis mine). In this passage, Derrida characterizes his debate with Searle as one dating back to Plato, part of a much larger context. Yet Derrida further characterizes his own role as, precisely, a role: he is the actor who mouths the words of an anonymous souffleur. What Derrida criticizes in Searle is something not proper to but belonging to "Westem metaphysics" or IIlogocentrism..1I This philosopbiea1 influence continues to work on both Searle Derrida. Searle tries to characterize the Derrida-Austin debate as taking place between "two prominent philosophical traditions" (Anglo-Saxon and continental); Derrida cot.mters by asking if Searle "n'est pas plus continental et parisien que moU" and explains "'Signature Evenement Contexte I analyse les premisses metaphysiques de la theorie anglo- saxonne --et foncierement moralisante-- du performatif" adding that Searle's "premisses et sa methode re1event de 1a phllosophie continen- tale et sous une forme ou sous une autre, elles sont tres prsentes en France" (LI, 10-11). As Derrida does not hesitate to point out, these metaphysical premises dating back at least as far as Plato are also part of the "self" that writes "Signature Evenement Contexte ll and IILimited Inc.," Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 The last section of "Signature Evenement Contexte" deals with the question of the signature and concludes: (Remargue: Ie texte--ecrit--de cette communication-- orale-devait etre adresse aI' Association des sociE!tes de philosophie de langue fram;aise avant la seance. Tel envoi devait done etre signe. Ce que j' a1 fait et contrefais iei. Ou.? U.. J. D. J. Derrida (ME'. 393) In IILimited Inc," Derrida returns to the significance of this signature and makes a surprIsing claim: IIJe suls pret a. jurer que cette signature n'est pas de ma main!! 6). This confession is not merely meant to cast doubt on the "authenticity" of the signature and thus of the authorship of "Signature Evenement Contexte," nor to illustrate that the iterable structure of language makes imitation, etc. always a possibility, but also to show Derrida's complicity with traditional philosophy. For "Signature Evehement Contexte" was signed by Derrida's "other hand," a hand he cannot control: Je voulais seulement marquer .. que cette autre main, peut-etre, et nulle autre, avait dicte la Reply am:: trois + n auteurs . et que la question du "copyright," en depit au a cause de son lieu marginal ou hors texte .. ne devait plus etre eludee, dans aucun de ses aspects: juridico-economique, politique, ethique, phantasmatique ou pulsionnel, etc (LI, 6). The copyright's function is essentially legal and economic: it protects against "plagiarism," the theft of "oue I s own" ideas, and is part of the larger political structure that determines the rights of the "legal subject." The signature, as it functions on a legal contract, a lease, or a check has the same purpose. Derrida is suggesting that the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 determination and continued existence of these legal structures correspond to a desire (metaphysical in its origin) for identity, the proper, a self untouched by the other. l'he legal structure exists to protect against the !!,emergence of the difference from self that constitutes the self in the first place. The legal subject is a construct that disguises the indeterminacy and the heterogeneity of the self, and in disguising them, gives the self its power. There is no question that, from a legal standpoint, Jacques Derrida is the author of "Signature v ~ e m e n t Contexte" (and of Marges de 18 Philosophie in which it appears as the last essay, the signature thus validating the entire text) and that the signature performs its normal function in that context. Derrida is taken for responsible and answerable for his texts and those texts are seen as representative of their author. In colloquia and interviews, Derrida is asked to answer criticism of his texts; seminars, university courses, articles and books are dedicated to the work of Derrida. All of this assumes that the proper name "Derrida" means something; that the signature designates Derrida as responsible; and that his texts have a natural relation to him.. We shall examine certain consequences of this "signature effect" in the next chapter. Derrida is not arguing that the signature is without effect, that, because the self is divided from the beginning, it cannot function as Searle claims. Rather, he argues that the signature effect is produced by the signature itself and is not governed by the intentions of the signer. Whatever the intentions at the moment of signing, whether or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 not the signer maintains those intentions, the signature and the text function. It follows that whatever force a text exerts cannot be controlled by the author or determined in advance. The text functions independently of these intentions. For these reasons, Derrida advances a notion of the subject as "Sarl," the French acronym. for "societe a responsabilite limitee," the equivalent of the American term "incorporated" or the British "limited. 11 These terms are legal titles that .authorize a group of individuals to function as a single, legal entity. The word "incorporated," affixed to a name or group of names does not to an entity but rather constitutes it as such. And, like the legal subject, Sarl is part of an institution that distributes and governs power or force. Derrida is led to conclude: John R. Searle et 'moi-meme' ne signons pas ici. Nous ne sommes que des 'pr@tes-noms. I Dans ce simulacre de confrontation, nous sommes des 'fronts': j'aime ce mot, j I ai appris dans un film de Woody Allen sur des evenements datant du mao-carthysme qulil signifiat 'prete-nom, I masque, substitut pour un sujet c.landestin (LI, 9). ,-Toody Allen's character in lIThe Front ll represents several writers who, because of political censorship (the black-listing of suspected communists) cannot sign their own names to their writings and so enlist Allen as a !Tfront. 11 The po Ii tical overtones of the analogy are entirely to the point. The law demands a signature, calls forth the sort of subterfuge that makes Woody Allen 1 s character both cooperate with and subvert the system. Derrida is in a similar position. He sees the II confrontation" between himself and Searle as between "la Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 tradition et son autre, autre qui n I est mime pas I son' autre" (LI, 43), adding: liCe que ces I fronts' representent, de surcroit ce qui peee sur aux au-deli de cet etrange cbiasme, ce sont des forces non- philosopbiques" (LI, 10). In signing his name, Denida comes to represent forces that are outsid.e philosophy, forces that Western metaphysics has repressed, in particular the force of writing (ecriture), that is, the capacity of language to function in the absence of the subject, his intentions, and the referent. But in his name, Derr:f.da also produces a signature effect, a proper name that functions within the metaphysics of presence. That is why the signature appended to Margee is not simply an ironic gesture or a game: even when he has "deconstructed" the signature, Derrida' s own signature does not cease to function with a legal context. And this responds to his desire, or to the desire of "1' autre main" that Derrida inherits from philosophy. Autobiography and Metaphysics. As might be expected, Derrida' s readings of autobiographies do not stress the uniqueness of the life being recounted, nor the pact the author establishes with the reader, but rather focus on the self's relation to the otherness of language. In De la GrammatoloSie (1967), for example, Derrida grants a central place to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions in his discussion of Rousseau's attitude toward writing. In order to demonstrate the ambivalence of this attitude, Derrida traces Rousseau's use of the term "supplement II across a number of his texts. In Rousseau, the word "supplement II appears as the artic.ulation of two terms: c.ulture is the supplement of normal sexuality. Reading Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 Les Confessions within the network of Rousseau's other texts (in particular the treatise on education Emile and the Essa! sur l'Origine des Langues), Den"ida traces the strange logic of the supplement: J ~ e concept de supplement . abrite en lui deux significations dont la cohabitation est aussi strange que necessaire" (GR, 208). On the one hand, the supplement is a surplus, added on to something that is already complete, "une plenitude enrichissant une autre plenitude. II On the other hand, however, "Ie supplement supplee. II ne s' ajoute que pour remplacer. II intervient au a'insinue a-la-place-de; s'i1 cambIe, clest comm.e on cmnble un vide." But in either case, whether it substitutes for something or is added onto something, "Ie supplement est exterieur, hors de 1a positivite a laquelle il se surajoute, etranger a ce qui, pour etre par lui remp1ad!, doit etre autre que lui u (CR, 208). It is for this reason that the supplement is dangerous: it is added onto something that should need no addition, that ought to be sufficient to itself; and it usurps the place of that to which it is added. Evil and dangerous, the supplement threatens the innocence and the integrity of whatever it attaches to. Nevertheless, Rousseau's attitude toward the supplement in its various forms (writing, masturbation, etc.) is not entirely negative. He recognizes, at least at some level, that writing can only supplement speech if speech is in some way already "infirme. n In fact, Rousseau chooses to retreat from society and social intercourse in order to write because "moi present, on n'aurait jamais su ce que je valais" (quoted in CR, 205). Thus, Rousseau's physical presence leads to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 misunderstandings and his decision to "se cacher ll and to write is "la plus grande reappropriat:ion symbolique de la presence" (GR, 208). Writing provides a surplus: by giving up human society, Rousseau manages to "me faire reconnattre dans l' idealite de la verite et de la valeur" (GR, 205). What his spoken word cannot accomplish is made possible by writing. In the same way, and perhaps more spectacularly, masturbation, the supplement of normal sexuality, is dangerous but "ne l'est point autant, pense iei Jean-Jacques Rousseau, que l'habitation des femmes'" (GR, 223) In fact, "menace terrifiante, Ie supplement est aussi la premiere et plus sure protection: contre cette menace elle-mme" (GR, 222-23). Rousseau writes: J' appris ce dangereux supplement qui trompe la nature et sauve aux j eunes gens de mon humeur beaucoup de desordres aux depens de leur sante, de leur vigueur et parfois de leur vie (quoted in GR, 215). This formulation expresses all the ambivalence that Rousseau feels toward the supplement: it rescues one from certain disorders even while it threatens with others. In fact, Rousseau explains that he eventually gave up sexual relations with Therese because he felt that the activity "empirait sensiblement mon etat; masturbation, "1e vice equivalent dont je n' ai jamais pu bien me guerir m'y paraissait mains contraire" (GR, 224). Finally, Rousseau fears that lila jouissance elle-merne" involved in heterosexuality would be deadly: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jouir! S1 jamais une seule f01s en ilia vie j'avais gante dans leur plenitude tautes les delices de l' amour, je n'imagine pas que ma fdle existence y eut pu suffire, je serais mort sur le fait (quoted in GR, 223). 159 The supplement protects against this deadly plenitude as 1f "l'hetero- erotisme ne peut etre vecu quia pouvoir acceuillir en 501 sa propre protection supplementaire" (GR, 223). Masturbation, a vice that Rousseau fears will ruin his health, also protects against a greater danger, the danger involved in "1 'habitation des femmes." Rousseau always regards the supplement with ambivalence, fearing it yet employing it as a protection against the very thing that it supplements, because the former is both desired and feared, and the supplement "transgresse et a la fols respecte l'interdit" (GR, 223). Derrida concludes his discussion of Rousseau's Confessions with a reflection on his own methodology of reading. He concludes that, despite its focus on Rousseau's sexuality, the method "n'est . rien moins que psychanalytique" (GR, 228). The psychoanalytic reading assumes both "l'identite a soi du texte" and its simple referentiality that allows one to pass beyond the text to its true content "de c6te du pur signifie," two assumptions that Derrida is led to question in the course of his analysis of Rousseau's autobiography.14 Moreover, the term "supplement" that appears in Les Confessions is not "Rousseau I sIr word, but belongs to a long linguistic and metaphysical tradition. Cela pose 1a question de 1 'usage du mot 'supplement'; de 1a situation de Rousseau a l'interieur de la langue et de 1a logique qui assurent a ce mot ou a ce concept des res sources assez surprenantes pour que Ie sujet presume de 1a phrase dise touiours, se servant de Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 'supplement,' plus, moins, au autre chose que ce qu'il voudrait dire L'ecrivain eerit dans une langue et dans une logique dont, par definitiOi1,"""son discours ne peut dominer absolument Ie systeme, les lois et la vie propres. Il ne s'en sert qu'en se laissant dtune certaine manH!re et jusqu'a un certain point gouverner par Ie systeme (GR, 226-27). 160 If Derrida' s terminology and methods are Freudian, his goal is not to account for the "anomalies" of Rousseau's philosophy by appealing to an individual unconscious, but rather to analyze the structure of philo- sophy, to point to what ~ s been "repressed" in metaphysics itself. The proper name "Rousseau" represents only one articulation of this general structure. Without subscribing to a Jungian notion of a "collective unconscious," Derrida sees individual repression as the product of a larger cultural or social repression, one that, in Western society at least, includes the repression of writing and of difference: La repression logocentrique n' est pas intelligible a partir du concept freudien de refoulement; elle permet au contraire de comprendre comment un refoulement individuel et original est rendu possible dans l l horizon d'une culture et d'une appartenance historique (ED, 294). Thus, what appears most "autobiographical" in Rousseau, the expression of his personal desires, is inherited from the philosophy of presence, passed on through a language that Rousseau cannot fully master. This issue is taken up again in Derrida's discussion of structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. Derrida begins the last section of . his discussion of Levi-Strauss with two epigraphs: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sans jamais remplir son projet, le bricoleur y met toujours quelque chose de 801. La pensGe sauvage. Son systime est peut-etre faux; mais en le dwloppant, 11 slest peint lui-mime au vrai. J. -.1. Rousseau, Dialogues. (quoted in GR, 173) 161 Both quotations suggest the role of the autobiographical in the philo- sophical text. But as Derricia goes on to show, the autobiographies is more genealogical than individual. Levi-Strauss presents himself as the modern disciple of Rousseau: he inherits, not Rousseau' s ~ but his discourse, which Derrida defines as lila reprbentation actuelle, vivante, conscience dlun ~ dans l'expertence de ceux qui l'lcrivent ou le lisene" (GR, 149). In Levi-Strauss, there is a "rousseauism.e declare et militant" and Derrida asks: Dans quelle mesure l' appartenance de Rousseau a 18 metaphysique logocentrique et it la phi10sophie de la presence. assigne-t-e11e des lim! tes a un discours sc:ientifique?" (GR, 155). In inheriting Rousseau's discourse, Ll'ivi-Strauss also inherits a share of the logocentrism that Derrlda makes clear is a ~ a desire for presence. Presence a soi, proximite transparente dans Ie face-i-face des visages et l' illllllidiate portee de voix, cette determi- nation de l'authenticite sociale est done classique[,] rousseauiste Dans son laboratoit'e, ou p1ut6t dans son atelier, l'ethnologue dispose done aussi de ce rive, comme d'une piice au d'un instrument parmi d l autres [qui sert] Ie meme deair obatine dans lequel I' ethnologue 'met toujours quelque chose de soi' (GR, 200). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 Levi-Strauss' desire for an innocent world free from corruption leads him to privilege speech over writing and to admire societies that are "sans ecriture." Derrida argues that this desire is inherited from philosophy, from Rousseau but leading back once more to Plato. It is one of the tools that Levi-Strauss borrows in developing a system. by the method be calls "bricolage." Levi-Strauss claims that the bricoleur, unlike the inglinieur, does Dot make his tools to fit the task but rather borrows them, using whatever happens to be at hand to fit his purposes. Derrida adds that one of these tools is language, a language that is "deja la." Derrida further explains that the notion of ingenieur "reli!ve de la theolog1e creationniste" (GR, 201). Everyone 1s in effect a
Ie discours Ie plus radical, l'ingenieur Ie plus inventi et Ie plus systematique sont surpris, circonvenus par une histoire, un langage, etc., un mende auquel ils doivent emprunter leurs pieces" (GR, This formulation, of course, implicates Derrida as well as Levi-Strauss: he too depends on the borrowed tools of language, philosophical logic, and history, and so he too is a mouthpiece or front for the logocentric desire. Derrida goes on to suggest a remedy for this problem: Dans Ie mei1leur des cas J le discours bricoleur peut s'avouer lui-mime, avouer en soi-mime son desir et sa dGfaite, donner :a penser l'essence et la necessite du dejll-ll and use the borrowed tools Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pour di!truire l'ancienne machine" (GR, 201). Derrida adds that: l supposer qu'on conserve, par bricolage, I'idee de bricolage, encore faut-U savoir que taus les bricolages ne se valent pas. Le bricolage se critique lui_me (GR, 201). 163 Thus, Derrida offers a model of self-criticism to combat the inherited desire lodged in philosophical discourse. Derrida' slater texts, and especially.ill:!!. and "Euvois" will adopt this paradigm of self-criticism in a manner that resembles, or at least mimes, autobiography. But these later texts also point to the limits of self- criticism. and self-analysis: when Derriela takes up the theory of autobiography in 1980. he focuses on the "inanalyse de Freud" (CP, 297). the unconscious that is not recovered by self-analysis, the desire that is not only overlooked by self-criticism but actually expressed in the form of a self-criticism. It then becomes clear that the "meilleur des cas" is not the final response to bricolage but a further bricolage that only partly succeeds in destroying the lIancienne machine. II Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 CHAPTER V AUTOBIOGRAPHIeS A S ~ DERRIDA I S QY& Glas and the Logic of the Unconscious. It is tempting to mark the publication of Glas in 1974 as a turning-point in Derrida's development as a writer. 1 With Glas and the later texts, the issues of the self, of language, and of the desire for presence are often raised within the context of Derrida's position in the structures he is describing. Thus, Derrida's signature 1s brought into play in his discussion of the signature; his desire for presence staged in assessing the weight of the history of metaphysics; and his theses concerning the functioning of language illustrated by his use of language. In contrast to the relatively traditional form of De 18 Grammatologie and the essays on Husser!, Derrida's later texts experiment with various writing styles and their form and logic sometimes seem foreign to the conventions of philosophical discourse. This is not to say, however. that Derrida simply abandons the rigors of philosophical argument in these later writings: ~ contains sustained discussions and expositions of Hegel, Kant, Freud, Saussure and Genet. It is simply that, in addition to or alongside the philosophical critique, there is another story being told. that of a self's relation to language and to the ancestry of philosophy. Thus. like The Interpretation of Dreams, Glas is a theoretical text that is also a disguised autobiography. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In fact, the parallels in theme, method, and structure between Q!!!. and The Interpretati.on of Dreams are striking. Both are a Trauerarbe1.t, the struggle between a son and the father he tries to 165 commemorate and to bury. Derrida' s biological father makes a brief but significant appearance; as in The Interpretation of Dreams, however. the struggle involves intellectual forefathers as well. In both texts, the autobiographies develops from the interpretation of chosen examples; in Glas, it is texts rather than dreams that are interpreted. And finally I both are constructed on the principle of Gschnas, pieced together out of disparate elements, combining the trivial with the a11- important. The logic that brings these diverse elements together is the logic of the unconscious or of dreams: it is in the juxtaposition and association of the various pieces that a pattern of meanings begins to take shape. Thus, in that other story that Derrida tells in S!!" the logical relations between elements, characteristic of philosophical discourse, are replaced by relations of contiguity. The similarities between Qlli. and The Interpretation of Dreams are by no means coincidental. Freud's influence pervades Derrida' s text, and Derrida both analyzes and enacts Freud's notion of mourning. Furthermore, the "logic" that Derrida adopts in tracing various motifs in Jean Genet's texts 1s that of Freud's fetishist who, like the dreamer, chooses signifiers that express several, often contradictory, desires. Derrida I s rereading of Freud's article on fetishism is translated into a fetishistic writing that structures ~ 2 As we shall see, this textual fetishism is virtually indistinguishable from the structure of dreams. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 In ''Fetishism, n Freud explains that the fetish is ultimately a phal:l1c symbol but that the phallus in question is not "any chance penis" but rather lithe woman's (the mother's) penis that the little boy once believed in and does not want to give up" (XXI, 152-53). In Freud's view, to give up the belief that the mother has a penis is to face the possibility of one's own castration. In other words, the little boy, on discovering that his mother does not have a penis, concludes: she bas been castrated; therefore, it can happen to me. To circumvent this disagreeable conclusion, the fetishist refuses to admit that women have no penis. Or rather, he retains the belief but be also gives it up: Yes, in his mind the woman has got a penis, in spite of everything; but this penis ~ o longer the same as it was before. Something else has taken its place, has been appointed its substitute, as it were, and now inherits the interest which was formerly directed to its predecessor (XXI, 154). Freud adds that the fetish becomes a "memorial" to the fear of castra- tion and that "an inversion . to the real female genitals remains a stigma indelebile of the repression that has taken place" (XXI, 154). Toward the end of this short essay, Freud gives an example of a fetish that, Derrida claims, calls into question his earlier assertion that the fetish invariably symbolizes the mother's phallus. Freud prefaces the example with the words: "In very subtle instances both the disavowal and the affirmation of the castration have found their way into the construction of the fetish itself" and goes on to say: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This was so in the case of a man whose fetish was an athletic support-belt (Schamgiirtel) which could also be worn as bathing drawers. This piece of clothing covered up the geni.tals entirely and concealed the distinction between them. Analysis showed that it signified that women were castraded and that they were not castrated; and it also allowed of the hypothesis that men were castrated, for all these possibilities could equally well be concealed under the belt (XXI, 156). 167 Thus, the fetish may symbolize both the mother's phallus and the absence of a phallus, both castration and non-castration. As it happens, the French translation of the article of clothing that bears this multiple meaning (SchamgUrtel) is gaine, a term whose etymology leads back to "vagina," that is, to the very term that is excluded (averted) in the opposition between castration and What Derrida calls Ill' argument de 1a gaine, II then, is an argument that cons tantly reverses itself into its opposite or that combines contradictory possibilities into a single, undecidable term, a term. that can no longer refer unequivocally to a single Discussing the various significations of the flower in Genet's writings, Der1:'ida alludes to the argument de la gaine: Aiusi la fleur (qui egale castration, phallus, etc.) 'aignif1e' --encore!- 1:'ecoupe du moins la virginiti!! en gene1:'al, Ie vagin, Ie clitoris, la 'sexualite feminine, I la genealog1e matrilineaire, Ie seing de la mere, Ie seing integ1:'al, soit l'Immaculee Conception . Pour que 18 cast1:'ation 1:'ecoupe la virg1nite, le phallus se 1:'enverse en vagin, les opposees p1:'etendus s'equivalent et se refl.chissent, il faut que la fleur se retourne comme un gant, et son style comma une gaine (GL, 57-R). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 This passage not only demonstrates the logic of fetishism in relation to one of the major motifs in Derrida I s discussion of Genet, it also forms a link between the argument de 18 gaine and the logic of dreams. For the flower is one of the examples that Freud chooses to demonstrate the contradictory (sexual) meanings that a single dream symbol can bear. In fact, this example from. The Interpretation of Dreams plays a prominent role in Derrida's article on metaphor, liLa Mythologie Blanche" (1971). The example appears as an epigraph to a section of Derrida' s essay called "Les Fleurs de la Rhetorique: l'Reliotrope " ; as we shall see, the position of the example at the head of a section that treats the flower as the rhetorical figure par excellence, the figure for figuration generally, will be less and less indifferent. Here, then, is the passage quoted by Derrida: Le r@ve ne saurait exprimer l'a1ternative 'ou bien, ou bien'. I1 excel1e a reunir 1es contraires ou ales representer en un seu1 objet. La m@me branche de f1eurs (' 1a fleur de 1a vierge' dans 1a Trahison de la meuniere de Goethe) represente donc l' innocenee sexuel1e etaUS'Si son contraire Une seuledes relations logiques est favorisee par 1e mecanisme du r@ve. Clest 1a relation de ressemb1ance (Ahnlichkeit) de correspon- dance (iibereinsdmmung), de contact (Beriihrung), le 'de mime que' ('Gleichwie'); Ie rive dispose, pour les representer, de ( ) Ici aussi 'expensive flowers, one has to pay for them' aurait une signification, et bien reel1e, financiire. La symbolique des fleurs dans Ie r@.ve contient donc Ie symbole de la jeune fille et de la femme (jungfraUl1chweibliche), Ie symbole de 1 'homme et tme indication de defloration forcee elle insiate d'autant plus sur Ie caractire precieux du 'centre' (elle Ie nomme a un autre moment !. centre piece of flowers), de sa virginite ( ) (quoted in MP, 293, bracketed ellipses are mine). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 The resemblances between this passage and the passage in Q!!!. are remarkable: both view the flower as a figure for innocence as well as sexuality, virginity and defloration, penis ..!!.2! vagina. In fact, the passage is a virtual translation of the section from Interpretation of Dreams, except that where Freud writes "dream symbolism," Derrida substitutes "fetishism." We might be tempted to conclude that The Interpretation of Dreams is the secret "intertext" of this passage or even of .!!.! as a whole: this is Dot altogether unwarranted but it suggests that there is a single text presumed to lie behind Glas. As it happens, the passage also "rewrites" or translates a section of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Genet's Journal du Valeur and other wri.tings, and Derrida's own "Mythologie Blanche," to name only a few of the possible source texts. 3 Derrida describes 2!!!. as the sewing together or grafting of many texts (GL, 190-R) and passim): no doubt The Interpretation of Dreams is one of these grafted texts. t'Thanatopraxie" In Q!!!., Derrlda links this activity of grafting or glossing to an autobiographies: J'oublie, d'une certaine tout ce que je lis. Sauf telle au telle phrase, tel marceau de phrase, apparemment secondaire, dont Ie peu d'importance apparente en tous cas ne justifie pas cette sorte de resonance, de retentissement obsedant qui se garde, .. s1 longtemps apris l'engloutlssement, de plus en plus rapide, de tout Ie reste. On doit toucher lao a. la matrice compulsionelle de l'ecriture, a son affect organisateur (GL, 218, 9-R). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 This description brings to mind Freud! s discussion of the "indifferent impressions" of the dream-day that serve as source material for the dream (IV, V: 65, 88). These impressions, of course, are charged with significance by unconscious thoughts and desires seeking to gain expression. The quotations in Glas function in a similar way: episodes from Genet's autobiographical writings, dialogue from his theater, images and arguments from Hegel's philosophical texts, and even the two-columned form of Genet's short essay nCe qui est reste d'un Rembrandt dechire en petits carres bien reguliers et foutu aux chiottes" all serve to describe Derrida I 5 textual activity in Glas and, in particular, his Oedipal relation to his philosophical forefather Hegel. is a family romance (Ct, 7-L), a "travail du deuil" or "thanatopraxie" (GL, 99-L), the story of Derrida's philosophical ancestry. Thus, his decision to focus on the question of the family in Hegel lI est loin d'etre innocent. 1I As Derrida admits, it stems from "des motivations inconscientes qu'tl faut mettre en jeu et au travail, sans qui aucune theorisation prealable en soit possible" (GL, 11-L). Glas stages the death and burial of the imposing philosopher Hegel: it works at Hegel '5 philosophy, transforming the monolith of his writings into a tomb. Yet Derrida realizes that a tomb does not simply bury the dead; it also commemorates, creates a lasting monument that grants the deceased, now merely human remains, a place within the human community. In a sense, then, the for Hegel never stops tolling; the corpse continues to rattle about in its coffin. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 The passage that describes the scraps of text that remain in one I s mind as a "r(sonance" or "retentissement" suggests that the gloss is a kind of.l!!!., a reverberation that outlives the reading of a text. Demda describes this reading as consuming, inc:orporating by swallowing, and suggests that writing proceeds from the undigested bits of text that somehow impel the writer (Derrida will sometimes use the term ~ (GL, 280-R) to produce a text of his own. Thus, the activities of reading and writing are seen as both the sounding of a death knell and the consuming of a dead body. Both metaphors invoke the notion of Trauerarbeit and both figure prominently in Derrida' s description of his textual practice in Glas. 2!!!. begins with a consideration o f ~ The term (though generally in the plural) means "remains" and designates what is left of a human body after death, the corpse. "Les restes d'un repas," futher, are the scraps and crumbs left after a meal; the notion of cannibalism, of course, allows these two meanings to intersect. Derrida often uses the term, along with its variant "restance" to refer to a text, to the capacity of language to continue to function in the absence of the writer, the reader, the referent, and the writer's intentions. The.!:!!!!. is the part of language that does not belong to anyone, that cannot be claimed by an author, nor fully appropriated by a reader. Thus, those persistent passages of a text that remain behind in the mind of the reader, that lead him to write as if from compulsion, are a l s o ~ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 In the context of Derrida's reading of Hegel, moreover, the ~ is the negative moment of the dialectic before it'has been reassimi- lated, sublated, aufgeboben; more radically, it is the moment in Hegel's dialectic that cannot be aufgeboben, that which remains behind after the Aufhebung has taken place. But Genet also develops a notion of the ~ : it 1s clear that "what has remained of a Rembrandt ll is the essay nCe qui est reste .. " itself. Thus Genet offers Derrida a model of reading as reste, as the destruction of another work of art (for Genet, the paintings of Rembrandt) in order to produce a text. Derrida concludes that "i1 y a du reste, toujours, qui sa reCDupent, deux fonct:ions ll : the reste lise divise en deux," may function in two ways: L'une assure, garde, assimi.1e, interiorise, idealise. releve 1a chute dans Ie monument. La chute sly maintient, embaume et momifie, monumemorise, s'y nomme--tombe. Done, mais comme chute, s'y 8rige" (GL, 7-R). This is the Hegelian model o f ~ : the ~ is the negative moment of the dialectic and it is idealized, raised (releve, Derrida's translation of aufgehoben), reassimilated into the system. The above passage is a description of the general operation of the Hegelian dialectic, but it is also, more particularly, a description of Hegel's concept of burial rites. Hum:m remains, in a sense, remain human, because the family commemorates the death by building a tomb. The tomb commemorates the fall into death (thus the play on words with "tombe," which function as both noun and verb). The second function "laisse tomber Ie reate" (GL, 8-R). This is Genet's notion of ~ remains that are not recuperated, a body that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is not resurrected: Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs eut la tete coupae par un vrai couteau. Et rien ne se passa. A quoi bon? II ne faut pas que Ie voile du temple se dechire de bas en baut parce qu'un dieu rend 1 'me (quoted in G L ~ 16-R). But Derrida adds that these two functions intersect, the second 173 "risquant de revenir au meme" (GI., 8-R). If the ~ is the quotation or passage that continues to obsess the reader, tIDci! he produces a text of his own, that text may come to function as a monument, an idealization of t h e ~ This is one of Derrida' s major concerns or fears, especially in his discussion of Genet's texts: the right- hand column records Derrida I s reluctance to interpret Genet, his hesitancy to idealize, totalize a literary text that he feels exceeds every such effort. Thus, as a tomb for Hegel and Genet, ~ put the two functions of the ~ into play. Cannibalism. We have already seen that Derrida characterizes reading as analogous to eating, the consuming of the dead body., f tr.e author who dwells in the tomb. Explaining that Hegel. conforming to a "vieux theme humaniste et metaphysique, II believed that lila sepulture est Ie propre de 1 'homme, II Derrida describes the function of the tomb: "l'operation familiale du deuil transforme Ie vivant en conscience et en an'ache la singularite a la nature. EUe empeche Ie cadavre de retourner a. la nature" (GL, l63-L). But this act of burial as commemoration does not simply struggle against nature, against the decomposition of the human body into inorganic matter. Hegel suggests that lila force contre laquelle travaille la pompe funebre .. reprime Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 un desir inconscient. La famille veut empecher que Ie mort ne soit 'detruit; et la sepulture violee par ce des!r" (GL, 163, 4-L). Al though Hegel does not name the unconscious desire that would lead the family to violate the tomb, Derrida suggests that his remark IIforme l' ouverture systematique de cette analyse sur des problematiques ulterieures concernant Ie travail du deuil, l' anthropophagie, Ie cannibalisme, tous les processus d'incorporation et d'introjection ll (GL, 164-L). In other words, the repressed desire is the desire to consume the corpse, to make one's own body into a sepulcher for the dead. The monument, then, substitutes for the repressed wish, takes the place of the body-monument. Glas is a tomb of this sort, the product of a cannibalistic desire. But, in quotations and glosses, Derrida offers two models of canniba- lism, the Hegelian and the Genetian. The first paradigm occurs in the discussion of the Last Supper where Jesus, soon to be crucified, offers bread and wine to his disciples and proclaims: "This is my body. II This symbolic act, which announces Jesus' sacrifice of his body for the sins of mankind, is not at this point a "sacrifice utile": the act of eating and drinking together unites the disciples, not as the bene- factors of a sacrifice but as a group that shares the same feeling of love: Si ce qui les unit etait un avantage, un bienfait decoulant du sacrifice du corps et de l'effusion de sang. ils ne se trouveraient unis sous ce rapport que dans l'egalite d'un concept . ; mais en tant qulils mangent Ie pain et boivent Ie vin, que son corps et son sang passent en eux, Jesus est en aux taus, et son essence .. les a divinement penetres (durchdrungen) 'comme amour' (He9.;el. quoted in GL. 81-L). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 That love is objectified, represented as an object, the bread and the wine. ''L'esprit de Jesus, en qui ses jeunes disciples sont un est devenu, pour Ie sens externe, present comme objet, quelque chose d'effectif" (GL, 82-L). In the act of eating the object, however, the bread and wine are "resubjectified"; the object disappears, the disciples are united, not by the physical object but by the spirit of love that penetrates them. ''La consommation iate.riorise, idiialise, releve" (GL, 81-L). Hegel explains that lila Cene accompl.:f..t certes une consumation d' amour que la plastique grecque De peut atteindre" (Gr., 82-L) precisely because it involves an interiorizatioa of the object that symbolizes love: Quand les amants sacrifient sur l' aute! de la deease de I' amour et que l' effusion de leur sentiment dans la priere en anime [au spiritualise, begeistertl au plus haut la flanme, la divinite elle-m@me est descendue dans leur coeur -mais l'image de pierre reste toujours devant eux .; par contre dans Ie festm d' amour, le corporel s' efface et seul est present (vorhanden) Ie sentiment vivant (Hegel quoted in GL, 83-L, Derrida' s brackets). The act of eating and drinking together at the Last Supper is superior to both of these Greek forms of worship because it combines the symbolization of love in an external object and the resubjectivization of that object in the act of eating: La spiritua1ite de 1a ~ n e chretienne consomme ses signes, ne 1es laisse pas tomber au dehors, aime sans reste. L' amour devient visible en quelque chose, attache a quelque chose qui doit @.tre auanti" (GL, 83-L). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 Yet this is not yet an "operation religieuse ll because the internalized object does not simply disappear, leaving only the feeling of spiritual love; it is digested by the body. Consomme sans reste, l' objet mystique redevient subjectif mais cesse par 1;i meme d I atre objet d' adoration religieuse. Une fois dedans, Ie pain et Ie vin sont sans doute sub- jectives mais ils redeviennent aussit6t pain et vin, nourriture digeree, de nouveau naturalisee; lIs perdent leur qualits divine. lIs la perdraient aussi bien, 11 est vrai, a n'atre pas digereso Leur divinite se tient, tres precaire, entre I' engloutissement et Ie vomissement (G!., 83-84-L). Before being consumed, the bread and wine are objects that symbolize something divine; after they are swallowed and digested, they are also material objects, food to be digested. But in that moment of communion, as the symbol of love vanishes and before it becomes again a morsel to be digested, the bread and wine attain a certain "qua1ite divine." In what Derrida terms a "remarquab1e reflexion," Hegel compares this act of communion, the act of eating the signs of divine love, to the silent reading of a text. La voix tue, la voix absolument retenue aneantit l'exter- iorite objective du signifiant. La lettre et Ie mot disparaissent au moment ou ils sont entendus au-dedans et d'abord tout simplement saisis, compris. Pourvu qu' !l nomme, qu' i1 engage un discours, Ie mouvement de la langue est analogue a la copulation dans la Cene. . 'L I amour objective, ce subjectif devenu chose, retourne a sa nature, redevient subjectif dans I' acte de manger. Ce retour peut @tre compare. . a celui de la pensee devenue chose dans Ie mot ecrit, retour qui d'un mort (aus einem Toten), d'un objet, recouvre dans I' acte de lire sa subjectivite' (G!., 81-2-L). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 Just as Christ's divine love is given an objective form in the bread and w i n e ~ then once more subjectivized by the act of eating the object, the thought of an author is granted the form of the written word, then returned to thought in the act of silent reading. We notice that the written word is not only an object but un mort, a dead man or corpse. The act of reading kills off this corpse but also reanimates it, converts the material object into an idealized form. Hegel goes on to point out that his comparison between the Last Supper and silent reading I serait plus pertinente dans Ie cas au Ie mot eerit Sf evanouirait comme chose dans la lecture silendeuse a travers la comprehension; de meme dans la ;jouissance . du pain et du vin, ces objets mystiques n' eveillent pas simplement Ie sentiment , l'esprit n'y devient pas simplement vivant, mais 11s disparaissent eux-memes comme objets. Et ainsi I' operation para1t plus pure, plus conforme a sa fin, dans la mesure ou. el1e produit seulement I' esprit, Ie sentiment et ravit a l'entendement son propre . "7 aneantit la matiE!:re . l'inanime (Hegel, quoted in GL, 82-L). When one reads a text, the text remains behind; unlike the act of eating together at the Last Supper, the signs do not disappear after they have been transformed. Thus, the act of consuming bread and wine appears "plus conforme a sa fin r .: the ~ in both case!'; is a consumption that leaves no ~ a ~ that is only glimpsed in that moment that Derrida describes as "entre l' engloutissement et Ie vomissement. 1I We have, then, the first model of reading as cannibalism that Derrida puts forward in Glas. This Hegelian model seeks to reduce the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 materiality of the text, and insists on the transformation of the dead, written word into thought. The second model is offered by Genet: here, it becomes clear that a written text can give rise not only to comprehension, immaterial thought, but also to another text, that is, a vomissement or excrement. After a long quotation from Miracle de 18 Rose, where Genet compares in vivid language the "rhythme rapide de ma pensee" to a ride on horseback, Derrida stops to reflect on the act of interpreting Genet, and, alluding to certain motifs that he has pointed to in discussing Genet's texts, writes: Ne pas arriter la course d'un Genet. C'est la premiere fois que j'ai' peur, en ecrivant, comme on dit, 'sur' quelqu'un, d'@tre lu par lui. Ne pas I'arreter, Ie ramener en arril!re, Ie brider Il n'ecrit presque plus, :1..1 a enterrE la litterature comma pas un, i1 saute partout ali Cia saute dans Ie maude et ces histoires de glas, de seing, de fleur, de cheval doivent Ie faire chier (GL, 45-R). A genet is a type of horse native to Spain, and much of the right-hand column of Q!!.! is concerned with the ways that Genet undermines the legal status of a signature (as the guarantor of the author's status as creator or owner of the text) by playing with his proper name, making it a figure within the .text, using the genet and the (a type of flower called ''broom'') as motifs in his writings (see below,sq ,199 ). At this point, however, Derrida feels a certain uneasiness or disgust at his interpretations, fearing that he has arrested the flow of Genet's writing by insisting on only a few of its themes, and further, that he has betrayed Genet by discussing his writings at all, since Genet has Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. stopped writing and bas become immersed in political activities. Nevertheless, Derrida continues to interpret Genet: 91 toute cette 8J.oquence sur 18 signature en forme de cheval le fait chier, tant pis. Le seing tombe aussi comme un excrement SQua seelle. Reate -8 savoi.r- ce qui fait elder (GL, 46-R). Derrida's use of the vulgar term "liB fait chier" to describe the reaction that Gus might have on Genet reading it, introduces the excremental motif into the discussion. His expressed reluctance to 179 interpret, far from bringing the interpretation to an end, introduces a further motif and prolongs the discussion. In fact, Derrida's reaction against interpretation actually becomes part of the iuter- pretation: for if a signature truly guarantees that the text belongs to its author, how is it possible that the text continues to function even after the author has stopped writing? How is it possible to continue to give literary interpretations of a text whose author has buried literature like no one else? On the other hand, if the signature is completely without effect, how to account for the reaction of disgust one feels at having misrepresented the text or the author? Derdda's answer to these questions is to examine Genet's description of the volcano-shaped hole that the prisoners in la Rose use as a latrine. This description in Glas serves as a figure for the signature. Thus, the phrase "Reste --a savoir-- ce qui fait chier," which introduces this discussion, poses the question: lilt remains to be seen what makes one shit. 11 In other words, it asks: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 What can Genet's descripti.on of the prisoners' excremental habits tell us about the issues we have been discussing in relation to Genet's texts and, in particular, about the signature? According to another reading of the phrase J however J it is already a partial answer to the question. We have seen that, in Derrlda I s idiolect, refers to the brief passages or scraps of dialogue that remain in the mind after one has read a text, the quota- tiona that persist, obsess the reader, and. lead him to produce a text of his own. Thus, the phrase might be translated, "Reate: that is, what makes one shit," and would serve as a definition of the term "reate." This suggests that the two columns of are fecal columns, the products of a reading of certain passages that, because they cannot be wholly incorporated, are expelled --as anotber text. In fact, Derrida describes his text as un discours dont les unites se mouleut a. la maniere d'un excrement. L' association est une sorte de cont:l.guIte g1uante, jamais un raisonnement oU'un appel symbolique; 1a g1u de l' alea fait sens, et le progres se rythme par petites secousses" (GLt l61-R). It is not only the materiality of his text that leads Derrida to compare it to an excrement: Q!!!. proceeds by associations of contiguity which Derrida compares to the rhythmic movements of the bowels. For Hegel, reading is the consumption of a dead body (the written word) in ot'der to make it alive again in the mind of the reader; for Derrida, that consumption leads to another text, a material excrement. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 As the analysis of excrement in Genet's text continues, however, it becomes clear that this second aspect of the reate intersects, to a certain degree, the idealized, For the prisoners' excrement does not simply fall: the latrine is a tub (tinette) of about a meter in height and the prisoners are obliged to climb up onto the seat in order to defecate. Thus, the is an "erection en abime," a hole that rises up in the middle of the lIronde des punis." Furthermore, Genet describes the odor of the excrement as rising up from the hole. The excrement rises and falls at the same time. And of course, Genet's text glorifies and aesthetizes the scene of defecation, idealizes it in some sense; it becomes part of a literary text. Derrida concludes: "L 1 excrement solide. s 1 eleve dans Ie chant incorporel de l'odeur alors que tout 'descend,' s 'effondre, pend, provoquant Ie baton liquide a gieler en hauteur" (GL, 48-R). In other words, Genet's project to "magnifier l'etron ll (GL, 46-R) in some ways resembles Hegel's efforts to constantly recuperate the reste. Phallic Columns. In the very first pages of Derrida records. two restes, two passages from Hegel that, he claims, are the only part of Hegel's corpus that he plans to "donner a lire. 1I In fact, he will not discuss the passages explicitly until the very end of the book, ... '" 1nne: t'I",t-OU1" th""r: follow.": thp. question of the in Hegel's. In another sense, however, the passages are omnipresent, reappearing in various forms in both columns of and finally functioning as figures for the operation of the text itself. They are, then, the sort of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 passages that Derrida sees as persisting in the mind because they form a link with unconscious desires. The first of these passag,"-13, drawn from the Phenomenology of Spirit, concerns the change from the religion of flowers to the religion of animals; it alludes, in the context of Glas, to the way that Genet t s proper name functions as both a flCMer and an animal (a horse). I shall discuss it in more detail at a later point. The second passage, from Hegel's Aesthetics, describes lila colonne phallique de Illnde." Derrida explains that e11e ne aerait propagee vers la Phrygie, la Syrie, la Grece, ou, au cours des fetes dionysiaques, selon Herodote cite par Hegel, les femmes tiraient Ie fil d I un phallus qui se dressai t alors en l' air, t presque aussi grand que Ie reste du corps' (GL, 8-L). In India, writes Hegel, this veneration of the Zeugungskraft, virility or power of procreation, of the phallus took the form of large stone columns shaped like a phallus. At first, these columns ._ . ..,etaient intactes inentamees, lisses, Et c'est seulement plus tard (erst spater) qu'on y pratique, dans Ie lane, si l'on peut dire, des entailles, excavations, ouvertures (GL, 9-L). These carvings or sculptures on the phallic column annon<saient les petits temples portatifs et hermetiques des Grees, commes elles entamaient Ie modele de la pagode qui n'est pas encore tout a fait une habitation ia' a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183 Thus, the phallic: columns are at first solid rock with a smooth surface, "apparemment introuables" (GL, 9-L); as time passes, however, they are carved, sculpted, and finally hollowed out, transformed into a pagoda which, not yet a dwelling, still announces the dwelling that 1s to follow. Derrida concludes the paraphrase of Hegel's passage by asserting of the columns: lion ne peut done y loger. Quoi que ce soit, mort ou vi. Ce o'est 01 une maison 01 une sepulture II (GI., 9-L). In this gloss of Hegel's text, Derrida introduces a number of figures that will come to describe and Derrida's activities of reading and writing: there is, first, the allusion to the women at the dionysiac rites who erect a false phallus, a fetish; second, the large phallic columns, at first smooth, then, bit by bit, carved with images; finally, the hollowed-out pillars that will serve as a dwelling or a sepulcher, a home for the living or for the dead (as we shall see, these two dwellings will become virtually indistinguishable in Glas). Glas is written "au nom de Hegel," in Hegel's name and in his honor. As he develops the figures of reading and writing, Derrida asks: What does it mean to honor the dead? Can one erect a tomb without already desecrating it? Does the that one tolls commemorate the dead body, or bury it, kill off the already dead? Honoring the Dead. As the gloss of Hegel's discussion of the phallic columns proceeds on the left-hand side of the text, the right- hand column records a number of dictionary entries from Littre. The second of these is t'catafalque, n an "estrade elevee, par honneur. au Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 milieu d'une eglise, pour recevoir Ie cerceuil au Is representation d'un mort" (quoted in FL, a-R). Littre adds that "catafalque est Ie dme mot que ~ since both are combinations of Iteadare, n to look, and "falco," balcony. A catafalque is a space erected to hold and bonor the dead; the "same word," "echafaud ll is the platform erected to kill, to bring about a death. In addition, one of the variant etymological forms of ucatafalque" is "cadapha11us," which suggests "cadat phallus," "let the phallus fal1." Already we perceive an intimate link between the divine, the phallic, and the dead. The phallic columns of India were erected in honor of the phallus' Zeugungskraft and were sculpted with G6tterbilder, the images of gods; later, these columns became pagodas, then dwellings and sepulchers. Thus, the phallus, at first an object of worship, is eventually hollowed out, made into a tomb for the dead. Beneath the dictionary entries, Derrida describes the passages as ouvrant --ici-- dans la pierre de chaque colonne des sortes de judas incrustes, crenaux, jalousies, meurtriE!res pour VOiT a ne pas se la1sser emprisonner dans le co1osse, tatouages dans 1a peau p1issee d' un corps phaUique ne se donnant jamais a lire qu' a bander" (GL, 8-9-R). The vocabulary suggests that Derrlda' s task in .2!.!!. is to make of Hegel's inpenetrable corpus a habitation, by tatooing on the phallus, carving out keyholes, battlements, peep-holes. The terms "judas, II "crenaux," IIjalousies," and "meurtriE!res" are all architectural tenDS, but "jalousies, meurtrieres ll can also be read in this context as "murderous jealousies," as if Derrida's effort to make Hegel readable, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 to erect a column in honor of Hegel's phallic text, were also inspired to be a desire to murder Regel, to erect a tomb for Hegel's corpse. It is as if the insertation of ~ Derrida' s name for the pockets of text that sometimes interrupt the main columns, were a betrayal (and Derrida will link the judas to Judas, the man who betrays Jesus [G!., 40-41-L]). This train of thought continues in the Hegel column on the next page, where Derrida announces his intention to write an introduction to Hegel for whoever "n'a pas encore lu au entendu Hegel. ce qui est peut-etre la situation la plus generale, en tous cas la mienne iei maintenant ll (GL, lO-L). Evoking the German term. for "introduction, TI Derrida writes: IIEinfiihrung, comme disent lea philosophes allemands, introduction dans Hegel. Einfiihrung commande l' accusatif et indique 1e mouvement actif de penetration" (GL, lO-L). This active penetration is not, in appearance, anal or vaginal, but a penetration into the phallus itself, the hollowing out of Regel's phallic text, which begins with the carving or sculpting on the phallus, glossing the text, and ends with the erecting of another phallus, Derrida's phallic coltmm.. In a quotation from Genet's Pompes Funebres, Derrida suggests that the erection of a phallus is one means of honoring the dead. In the scene, Genet sees his dead friend Jean on a catafalque, his stiff corpse wrapped in bandelettes: "Devant les fleurs je bandai et j 'en eus honte, mais je sentis quia la rigidite du cadavre je ne pouvais opposer que la rigidite de ma verge. Je bandais and ne desirais personne" (quoted in GL, 18-R). The association of the corpse with an erect Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 penis is made possible not only through the shared characteristic of rigidity but also by a verbal bridge provided by IIbander. II both "to bind up" and lito get a hard-on." As a tribute to Hegel's dead corpus, Derrida erects his own phallic text. But if Derrida's text penetrates into Hegel's phallus, and if is itself a phallus, then the penetration is that of ODe column into another. As it happens, "une colonne dans l'autrel! is the phrase that Derrida uses to "describe the union that takes place within marriage, according to ODe of Hegel's early formulations of the nature of the family. It is the union, not of husband and wife, but of father and son: L'infinite du desir, du mariage et de la 101 interieure se tlent entre Ie fils et Ie pere. A un bref detour pres, a 1 r exception insignifiante d rune inessentialite (la femme est ici cormne la matiere), l' essence du mariage speculatif c.onsacre, avec toutes les consequences systematiques qu'on peut en induire, 1 'union du pere et du fils. Une colonne dans l' autre (GL, 44-L). The family is not a relationship of love or desire between two finite beings: marriage produces a son who, by leaving the family to be educated and entering the community, brings about the Aufhebung of the family unit. Thus, the important reLationship for Hegel is not the one between husband and wife, but between father and son. The father lives on in the son, and the family is made infinite. Thus, Derrida's act of penetrating into Hegel's text is an act of filial piety, the son's commemoration of the father. Yet it is also, as we have seen, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a c.ommemoration in the sense of a death knell, the carrying out of funeral rites. Derrida hollows out the phallus in order that it may serve as Hegel t s tomb. 187 Burial Rites. In Hegel's texts, however, it is not the son who buries the father; rather, it is the daughter, the wife, the sister, or the mother -woman in getieral-- who performs the rites of burial. As we shall see, Derrida is this woman also; or, at least, he dresses himself as a woman in order to achieve his goals. in order to bury Hegel, but also, in order to seduce, to play at and with philosophy. t't'aces the passage in the Phenomenology of Spirit from the family to the state, that is, from the "singularity" of the family unit to the "universality" of the state. This passage is brought about through the son wlYJ, having been educated, leaves the family unit and becomes a citizen. Yet in this operation, this passage from singularity to universality. something 0 r someone remains behind (reste): the mother, wife, or daughter, the woman who guards the hearth. Derrida explains that Hegel posits a tension between lila loi de la singularite" and "la loi de These two laws organize a series of oppositions: divine lawl human law, family/city, woman I man, night/day, etc. Human law. produced and administered by men (males) is public. visible, and universal: it regulates the state rather than the family and is associated with daylight. Divine law is a hidden, nocturnal law; it governs the family and is proper to women. It is more natural than human law but it is also in conflict with it since it works against universality. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Naturel, dlvin, f ~ m 1 n i n nocturne. familial, tel est Ie systime predicatif, la 101 de la singularite. Le but propre de la famille, de la femme qui la reprsente, strictement, c'est 1e singul1er comme tel. 188 The problem is that "dans son essentialite, la singularite ne peut que disparaitre" (GL, 161-L): according to the Hegelian dialectic, singularity must be overcome, sublated into universality. Yet woman remains in contradiction to this dialectical progression: as guardian of the hearth, she obeys a contradictory law, works against universali- zation, against the male law: "Le gouvernement --la d.te- autorise et organise [Ie] droit familial, element et etre-U. naturel de 18 communaute, [ma.1s] 11 est auss! menace par lui. La familie met la tAte en peril" (GL, 165-L). Hegel writes that the "objet essentiel" of the family is not the citizen, since be does not belong to the family but to the government, nor is it the individual who is not yet a citizen but will become one; if the goal of the family is "le singulier comme tel" (a goal in contradiction with the goals of the government), its proper object can only be "cet ltre singulier appartenant A la famille, mais pris CODlDle une essence universelle, soustraite a son effectivite." That is, the family is not concerned with a living being but with Ie mort, celui qui hors de la longue succession de son """itre-11l disperse se receuille. dans une seule figuration accomplie et hors de l'inquietude de la vie contingente s'est eleve a la quietude de l'universa- lite simple. --Puisque c'est seulement comme citoyen qu'il est ~ et substantiel, l'itre singul1er, en tant qu'!l n'est pas citoyen et appartient a la famille, est seulement l' ambre sans force. et ineffective (Hegel, quoted in GL, 162-L). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 The only moment when the individual belongs completely to the family not as a empirical being but as uuniversalite simple ll is when he is dead; otherwise, he belongs to the universal:J.ty of the government, as a citizen. The activities proper to the family are, then, toilette du mort, institution de la mort, veillee, monumentalisation, archive, heritage, genealogie, classification des noms propres, gravure sur les tombes, ensevelissement, sepulture, chant funebre, etc. (GL, 162-L). The family perpetuates itself by remembering those who have died, by granting the human remains a place in the genealogy of the family, by engraving the proper name in the family archives. Thus, concludes Derrida, "la famille ne conna1t pas encore Ie travail producteur d'universalite dans la cite, seulement Ie travail du deull" (GL, l62-L). As we have seen, it is women who guard the hearth, remaining behind after men have become citizens; thus, women are the represen- tatives of the family. Derrida concludes that, since men only belong to the family in death, il revient a la feminite epousee de gerer, strictement, un cadavre. Quand un homme se lie a une femme. . . i1 s'agit toujours de lui co'Ii'fIersa mort . Confier la mort, la garde d'un coprs sans moelle, a charge pour la femme d' eriger sa sepulture avoir enseveli Ie cadavre rigide (onction, bandelettes, etc.), Ie maintenant ainsi dans une surrection vivante, monumentale, interminable (GL, 162-63-L). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 When a man marries, what he offers his wife is not himself as a living subject (since that still belongs to -the government) but his dead body, the only part of himself that belongs essentially to the family. In some sense. the wedding night is already a wake; the image of the rigid penis entering the woman I s body blends with that of the cadaver entering the earth since "la Duit du mande souterrain est la femme. precise Hegel" (GL, 162). In addition, the dwelling that the woman oversees is already in some sense a sepulcher. Thus, if Derrida is burying Hegel, hollowing out the phallic text so that it may serve as a dwelling or sepulcher for Hegel's proper name, he is acting as (or like) a woman. Women and Fetishism. Derrida suggests that.Q!M. is a Trauerarbeit: we are, then, justified in asking whether this mourning gives way to a phase of triumph, whether, as in The Interpretation of Dreams and in Freud's theory of mourning, there is not a moment when Derrida separates himself completely from the dead father, and lays him to rest at last. As it happens, there is a triumph of sorts, but it does not lay Hegel to rest, nor does it consist in Derrida 1 g becoming a father: it is in becoming woman that Derrida escapes Hegel's influence, or rather, in pretending to be a woman -who is pretending to be a man. We recall that in the passage from the ~ that Derrida quotes in the first pages of ~ Hegel alludes to certain dionysiac rites, where women adorn themselves with a false phallus, and pullan a string in order to erect it "presque aussi grand que Ie corps." Describing his own project in Glas, Derrida writes: "Pour travailler Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 au nom de Hegel, pour l'eriger, Ie temps dlune ceremonie, j'ai chofsi de tirer sur un fil. C'est la 10i de la familIel! (GL, lO-L). Thus, Derrida disguises himself as woman, adorned with a fetish object, in order to erect the false phallus in the name of Regel. The image suggests Derrida' s later discussion of Kant and the problem of sexual difference. For Kant, Derrida begins: La femme veut etre un homme, 1 'homme ne veut jamais etre une femme. Kant ne s I etend pas sur cette derniere proposition, en chute de paragraphe lt (GL, 148-L). This leads Derrirla to speculate: Que voudrait dire, pour un homme, vouloir etre une femme, des lors que la femme veut etre un homme a mesure qu'elle se cultive? Cela voudrait done dire, aI' apparence d I un detour pres, vouloir etre un homme, vouloir etre --c'est a dire rester- un homme (G!., 148-L). For Kant, man is the goal toward which woman strives; limited in her powers, she wishes to become a man IIpour pouvoir donner a ses inclinations un espace de jeu (Spielraum) plus grand et plus libre ll (Kant, quoted in GL, l48-L). Thus, the man who wants to be a woman, would, like every woman, want to be a man; the desire to be a woman would simply be a detour on the way to becoming what both sexes want to be --male. In the next paragraph, Derrida revises and complicates this first paradigm: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Est-ce a:l. simple? Kant dit-i! que 1a femme veut @tre un homme? Il die plus precisement qu'elle voudrait, clans certaines situations, se parer des attribute de 1 'homme pour d'aliser ses deBaeins de femme: etre mieux en meaure dravo!r tous les hommes. Elle fait sem.blant de wuloir etre un homme au d' etre un homme pour I etendre l' espace de jeu' de ses inclinations (GL, 148-L). 192 Woman does not really want to B!. a man; she only wants to appropriate a certain "maleness t II male power or prowess, in order to achieve her female a1ms. What, then, would a man who wants to be a woman desire? Tout se renverse: au bien 1 'bomme qui ne veut itre qu 'homme veut itre femme en tant que 1a femme veut etre homme; 11 veut done i!tre femme pour rester ce qu'tl est. Ou b:l.en l'bomme qui veut etre femme ne veut etre que femme puisque la fe1llll1e ne veut etre homme que pour parvenir a ses desaeins de femme. A aavolr 1 'homme.. Etc. (GL, 148-L). The first instance is simply the logical consequence of Dettida' s !.!!.!.! paradigm: the man who wants to remain a man shares with woman his desire, since she too wants to be a man. His desi1:e to be a man puts him in the same position as woman, who also wants to be male. This is not entirely accurate, however, since, for Kant, woman does not really want to be a man, but merely to simulate maleness in order to better acc.omplish her designs, in order to seduce men. A man who wanted to be a woman would thus want to be a woman who merely maleness. That, of course, is preci.sely how Derrida characteri.zes himself in the passage ci ted earlier: he has become a woman, but a woman adorned with a false phallus. The possibility that Derrida does not consider in his discussion of Kant (or that he merely Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 subsumes under an !lete .lI) is that of a man who wants to be a woman (simulating maleness) in order to achieve his male designs, whatever those might be. Continuing to paraphrase Kant, Derrida links this transvestism of women to both fetishism and to reading: En fait, meme s1 el1e Ie vaulait vraiment, ce qui n'est pas Ie cas, la femme ne pourrait jamais etre homme. Les attributs masculins dont elle se pare ne sont jamais que du toe, des signifiants -sans signification, des fetiches. De la montre. Mal reglee sur Ie mouvement du soleil. Pour illustrer Ie fait que la femme ne peut en aucun cas Sf approprier l' attribut masculin, par exemple au substitution la science, la culture, Ie livre, Kant denonce une sorte de travestissement: 'En ce qui concerne les femmes savantes: elles en usent avec leurs livres comme avec leur mantre; elles la portent pourIiiOIitrer qu'elles en ont une, bien quia l'ordinaire elle soit arretee au ne soit pas reg1ee sur Ie solei1' (GL, 149-L). By writing "attribut mascu1inll in the singular form, and suggesting that science, culture, and books are substitutions for that attribute, Derrida is hinting that what _women lack is a phallus, and that their attempts to appropriate male power amount to fetishism, the merely ornamental use of a false penis. In the same T . . ~ a y a woman wears a watch simply as an ornament, not attending to its true function of telling time. The equivalent of displaying a watch that is not set to follow the movement of the sun would be treating books only as ornaments, or attending only to the ornaments of the book --the images, metaphors, figures, or verbal expressions-- without looking past the words for the ultimate meaning or truth of the book that is presumed to lie outside language. A reading "reglee sur 18 mouvement du solei1" is a reading Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194 that recaptures the author's intentions, that considers the author to be the father or source (as the sun is the source of light) of his writings, a reading that believes that the author's intentions "center" the text. 5 It 1s not difficult to read Kant's comments about women readers as a characterization of Derrida, since he has long mounted an assault on the notion that the author's intentions govern or control the text, and, as a reader, has often stressed the decenterlng effect of language. We begin to suspect that Derrida takes on the role of woman in order to escape the pervasive influence of the father Hegel, developing a method of reading that does not inherit the father's name and that does not ,simply replicate the father's text. In his essay on Nietzsche, Eperons, Derrida addresses the question of woman, linking the notion of truth as unveiling (aletheia) to the Freudian notion of the castration complex. According to Freud, the boy child recognizes the threat of castration when he sees the female genitals and concludes that girls have been castrated. Derrida explains lila write-castration, c'est justement l'affaire de l'homme, ~ ment masculinlt (EP, 47) and that woman believes neither in castration, nor in truth. He adds that la feume ne croit pas davantage a llenvern franc de la castration, if. 11 anti-castration. Elle est trop rusee pour eela et elle saito qu'tm tel renversement lui 6terait toute possibilite de simulacre, reviendrait en veri te au mime. Or la 'femme' a besoin de lleffet de castration, sans lequel elle ne saurait seduire ni ouvrir le de:sir -mais evidemment elle nly croit pas. Est 'femme' qui n'y croit"pas et qui en .;oue. En joue: dlun Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195 nouveau concept et d' une nouvelle structure de 1a croyance visant a rire (EP 48). . Bere again, woman adorns herself with a phallus, knowing that it is false, in order to produce desire and to seduce. She manipulates an "effet de verite" without believing in truth. Unlike the male fetishist, for whom the fetish commemorates his belief in the mother's phallus. a belief he cannot bring himself to give up entirely. woman knows that the fetish stands for no lost object, no ultimate signified. 6 In characterizing himself as a woman who erects Hegel's name IIle temps d'une ceremonie," Derrida suggests that his object is to seduce, to feign a philosophical discourse, a discourse on truth, in order to produce desire. Genet once more provides a quotation to serve Derrida as a description of his fetishistic writing. In the right-hand column, Derrida quotes Genet's question to his friend Stilitano: "Tu voudrais que je m'habille en femme?" (Gr., 249-R). The question appears in 1. Journal du Voleur: Stilitano has proposed that Genet earn money for them by working as a prostitute out of a nearby bar. Whereas in Kant's paradigm, it is women who take on male attributes in order to be better able to seduce men, here it is a man who dresses as a Woman in order, once more, to The possibility that is of Derrida's consideration of Kant, the very figure that describes Derrida's activity of fetishism, is provided by Genet. The quotation from Le Journal du Valeur appears in at the moment that Derrida turns to Freud's essay on fetishism. The question at hand is whether Freud's theory of fetishism is as a mode of interpreting the sexual fantasie.c; flutt (;enet records in his writings. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 In another passage from La Journal du Valeur, much quoted by Derrida, Genet describes how he became.emoe1onally attached to Stil1tano: D'uu geste de sa main vi.vante i1 me f:l.t signe quill voulait se deshab111er. Comme les autres soira je m'agenouillai pour dec:rocher Is grappe de raisin. AI' inter:l.eur de son pantalon 11 avait epingle une de ces grappes postiches dont les grains, de mince cellulose, sont bourres de ouate . Chaque fo:i.s, a la Criolla, trouble par la boursouflure, qu I un pede lui me.ttait la main a 1a braguette. ses daigts horrifies reucontraient cet objet qu'ils redoutaient @tre une grappe de son veri table tresor, Is branche oil comiquement, s'accrochaient trop de fruits Durant Ie temps qu'il l'avait portee cette grappe n'avatt pas nui a sa beaute. Au contraire, Ie sair, en les encombrant un peu, elle avait donne A ses jambes une 1egE!re incurvation, a son pas une douce gene un peu arrondie et quand il marchait de moi, devant ou derriere, je connaissaia un trouble de1icieux puisque mes mains l'avaieut .prepare. Cleat par l'insidieux. pouvoir de cette grappe, crois-je encore, que je m'attachais if Stilitano. 7 Derrlda poses the hermeneutic question: "Le style en questioI1, 1e pastiche retenu par l'epingle a nourrice, est-ce un fetiche" (GL, adding that this form of question assumes "qui on sache au mains du fetiche que c'est quelque chose." At first glance, the appears to function as a fetish: substitut de penis adore par l'enfant qu:L ne veut pas renoncer au phallus de la urere, erection 1lJ)numentale du triomphe sur 18 menace de castration, deni, compromis, etc. Tout cela n'est-il pas tri!s reconnaissable?t1 (GL, 2S0-R). Things are not so simple, however; for Freud, the fetish "saves the fetishist from becoming a homosexual, by endowing women with the characteristic which makes them tolerable as sexual objects" (XXI, 154). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 Genet is a homosexual and Stilitano already has the penis that the fetish is supposed to substitute for. The fetish is, then, a supplementary penis, as well as a "plaie pastiche ll (Genet, quoted in GL, 251). This supplementary castration also serves to "re-marquer- compenser un autre substitut de castration," Stilitano's missing right hand. As both a supplementary penis and a supplementary wound, the grappe de raisin compensates for the lost hand and, at the same time, symbolizes it. But, in order for the grappe de raisin to symbolize the lost hand, it must act as supplement of a supplement, since for Freud, "castration" is the ultimate meaning that mutilated members, missing eyes and teeth, and decapitation signify. "Castration" is the signified that is not itself a signifier, that which cannot represent something else. Derrida shows, however, that the phallus and castration can be brought into the play of significa- tion. Stl1itano's grappe de raisin does not signify simply an absent phallus, and his missing arm actually seems to make him more virile. In fact, Genet writes that IIquand un membre est enleve, m'apprend-on, celui qui reste devient plus fort. Dans Ie sexe de Stilitano, j'esperais que la vigueur de son bras coupe s'etait ramasse" (quoted in GL, l56-R). Thus, the penis itself seems to compensate, supplement the lost member. But if the penis functions as a supplement, it is in the position of the fetish. Derrida concludes that des lors que la chose meme, en sa verite devoilee, se trouve deja engagee .. dans Ie jeu de la difference supplementaire, Ie fetiche n I a plus de statut decidable. Glas du phallogocentrisme ... L'econoIDie du fetiche est n1us puis sante que Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. celle de la verite --decidable-- de la chose meme au qu'un discours decidant de la castration (pro aut contra). Le fetiche n'est pas opposable (GL, 252-54-R). 198 The grappe de raisin signifies both castration and non-castration: by adorning himself with it, "Stilitano semble s'affirmer aussi bien comme femme pudique Oll comme 'pede qui se hait'" (GL, 252-R). Adorned with the grappe de raisin, Stilitano has, as it were, a supplementary phallus, like the man disguised as a woman adorned with a false phallus or like the double-col.umned Glas. This fetishism is undecidable: Stilitano is both male and female; the fetish object both represents and guards against castration; the "thing itself,1I the penis, may also function as a fetish; and "phal!ogocentrism," which posits that the phallus and its absence, castration, are the ultimate si.gnified of fetishism, is called into question, decentered by that very fetishism. A fetishistic reading, then, would escape the author's influence, would decenter the reading that tries to recuperate intentions or locate an extra textual truth. "Si j' ecris deux textes a la fois, It writes Der.rida, "vous ne pourrez pas me chatrer" (GL, 77-R). Si je delinearise, j'erige. Mais en meme temps, je divise mon acte et mon desir. Je --marque la division et vous echappant toujours, je simule sans cesse et ne jouis nulle part. Je me chatTe moi-meme --je me reste a1nsi-- et je 'joue a .;ouir.' Enfin presque. (Ah!) tu es 1mprenable (eh bien) reste (GL, 77-R). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This passage alludes ":t:o "Freud's claim that the multiplication of phallic symbols in dreams is a device that the unconscious uses to guard against the threat of castration. But the multiplication also reveals the underlying fear of castration that it guards against: thus, it both protects against and represents that threat. 199 In this case, the threat of castration is the fear of having onels discourse "cut off," reduced to a single, ultimate signified. As we recall, this is Hegel's model of reading: the signs ought to disappear, consumed altogether by the reader. It is the father Hegel's law that poses the threat of castration, and it is his law that Derrida tries to escape. His meaDS of escape: the fetishism or transvestism that consists in adorning himself with a supplementary phallus. As we have seen, this fetishism is associated with both male homosexuals and women: in fact, the phrase "joue a jouir" is used by Genet to describe one of his lovers (quoted in Gr.. 32-R), but it also suggests the women in Eperons who "'se donnent pour,' m@:me quand elles --se donnent DaB sie 'sich geben,' selbst noch. wenn sie --sich geben ... (Nietzsche, quoted in EP, 56, ellipses in parenthesis are mine; all other punctuation is Nietzsche's). Thus, Derrida' s means of escaping Hegel's influence, of escaping the law of reading that would castrate his text, is to engage in a textual fetishism, to pervert Hegel's phallocentric law by becoming a woman or a homosexual. The form of the text is thus a triumph of sorts, but a triumph caught up in the double bind or undecidability of fetishism itself: the text remains Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 "imprenable"; it is o t ~ as Hegel would have it, consumed without reste, but at the same time, Derrida writes, "je simule sans cesse et ne jauis nulle part. II Unlike Freud, whose Trauerarbeit culminates in his becoming a father and taking the father's place, Derrida can only mock the father Hegel by practicing a textual perversion. The very first page of ~ conveys the weight of Hegel's influence and, in the facing column, offe'ts the strategy for escaping it. The text begins: quoi du reste aujourd 'hui, pour nous, iei, maintenant, d'un Hegel? Pour nous, iei, maintenant: voila. ce qu'en n'aura pu desormais penser sans lui. Sa signature, comme la pensee du reste, enveloppera ce corpus mais n'y sera sans doute pas comprise (GL, 7-L). Faced with the task of writing on Hegel, Derrida must admit that perhaps Hegel has already foreseen all that there is to say, has already programmed him with his ideas, thoughts, and methods, has already signed his name to Glas. How to escape such an all-pervasive influence? The answer appears in the right-hand column: !lIce qui est reste dlun Rembrandt dechire en petits carres bien regul1ers, et foutu aux chiottes' 5e divise en deux (GL, 7_R)!1 Genet's short essay, whose title refers to a destruction or fragmentation of the works of a great artist, also takes the form of two columns. In a description of that essay, Derrida also records his own strategy for the two columns of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Deux calonnea inegales, disent-ils, dont cbaque- enveloppe ou gaine, incalculablement renverse. retourne, remplace, remarque, recoupe l' autre. L'incalculable de ce qui est reate se calcule, elabore tous les coups, les tord ou les echafaude en silence, VOllS vallS epuiseriez plus vite 11 les compter. Cbaque petit carre se delimite, chaque colonne s I enli!ve avec un impassible suffisance et pourtant 1 t element de la contagion, la circulation inflnie de I' equivalence generale rapporte cbaque phrase. chaque mot, chaque moignon d' eer! ture. a chaque autre, dans chaque colonne et d 'une colonne a l'autre de ce qui est reate infiniment calculable. A peu pres CGL, 7-R). 201 We have seen only a very few instances of this contagion effect: by writing two texts in one, two columns woose only relation to each other is a set of common concerI!s, Derrida produces an infinitely tolling Glas that allows the play of signification to continue through the juxtaposition of passages and quotations in endless combinations. In this way, the language never comes to rest, never points to a single, ultimate signified: Hegel is never laid to rest, but he is never totally idealized either. The ~ never stops tolling for Reg,,:l and something of his text remains behind, reste. / Literary Discourse and the Case of the....-signature. The first example that Derrida chooses to illustrate the double function of the reate is the signature. From the beg'inning, the status of this example is at issue. He suggests that the case (cas, Fall) of the signature may also be a trap ~ ) and later criticizes Jean-Paul Sartre for making of Genet1s texts "Ie cas d'une structure universelle" (GL, 37-R). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 Nevertheless, Derrida suggests at other times that the signature and Genet's use of it are of paradigmatic importance in the study of literary discourse. Furthermore, Derrida's comments on Genet's use of the signature describe his own practice in Glas; the definition of literature that Derrida develops on the basis of this issue identifies as a literary text. As we shall see, it is largely Genet's autobiographical writings that come to stand as paradigmatic of literary discourse generally, and it is the autobiographical moments in Derrida' s text that conform. to his theory of literary discourse. Having outlined the two intersecting functions of the reste, Derrida, by way of example, suggests that this is "peut-etre Ie cas (Fall) du seing" (GL, 8-R). Playing on the etymology of both . the French and German word for "case," he introduces the notion of falling into the discussion of the signature. Thus, he writes, "Ie seing tombe" (GL, 8-R). The syntax of the phrase (the fact that "tombe" can function as both a verb and a noun) allows it to express both functions of the signature at once: the signature erects itself into a monument or tomb, and the signature falls. On the next page, Derrida suggests that the issue of the signature is a preliminaire indispensable a l' explication de la formalite (par exemple 'litteraire') avec tous les juges muscles qui l'interrogent depuis des instances apparemment extrinseques (question du sujet --biographique, historique, economique, politique, etc.-- classe). Quant a la textuallte generale, le seing represente peut-etra Ie cas, le lieu de recoupement (topique et tropique) de l'intrinseque et de l'extrinseque (GL. 9-10-R). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 Even a formal explication of a text, an explication of its intrinsic: properties, must come to terms with the question of the signature, since every interpretation of judgment makes certain assumptions about the text's "outside," 1ts author, history, and position in literary discourse. The signature, as the articulation between the inside and the outside, is thus the privileged locus of a discourse that seeks to investigate the relationship between the text and what lies beyond it. Derrida suggests that the role of the signature is at issue in any sort of discourse; nevertheless, he takes literary discourse as a privileged example. The question of narrative voice and of fictionality complicates, or at least foregrounds, the signature's relation to the text, and in particular, the relation of the "I" in the text to the name that signs it. This is a fortiori the case of autObiography, where the fundamental issue in defining the genre involves the relation between the author and the subject of the text. And, just as the signature lies at the margin of the text, autobiography appears marginal to literature; for this very reason, all the issues regarding the definition of literature, the notion of fictionality, and the relation of literature to non-literature are concentrated in autobiography. Derrida offers two alternative ways of looking at the signature's position in relation to the text it signs: either the signature is within the text, or it lies outside it. In the first case, the signature "ne signe plus, elle opire comme un effet a l'interieur de l'objet, joue comme une piE!:c:e dans ce qu'elle pretend s'approprier ou reconduire a l'origine. La filiation se perd. Le seing se defalque ll Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204 (GL, lO-R). If the signature 1s inside the text, it is not a signature at alL It is simply a name, a word, one of the elements in the play of signification. It cannot guarantee an ultimate signified, cannot function as the expression of an author's intentions or as the source of the text. It cannot refer to the text's "father" (Le. author), cannot watch over the text and guarantee its legitimacy. If, on the other hand, the signature is outside the text, "e11e emancipe aussi bien 1e produit qui se passe d'elle, du nom du pere au de la mere dont 11 n I a besoin pour fonctionner. La filiation se denonce encore, e11e est toujours trahie par ce qui 1a remarque" (GL, lO-R). If the signature is simply outside the text, then, by definition, the text does not depend on it and is already complete without it. The text can operate without the presence of the author or even the author's Drawing on a persistent metaphor that he analyzed with acuity in "La Pharmacie de Platon, n Derrida describes the relation of author to text as one of filiation. Throughout Glas, he uses and distorts Plato f s metaphor: whereas for Plato, the parent in question is always the father, Derdda suggests here that the author is alternatively the father and the mother of the text. Furthermore, since, as we saw in the last chapter, the signature does not simply refer to an already- existing subject, but constitutes it a legal entity, the signature is not just a representative of the author, but its producer, that is, its father or mother. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 These distortions of Plato's model allow Derrida to assimilate his discussion of the family, and in particular, of Genet's family, to the question of the signature. For, as it happens, "Genet," the author's nom de plume, is also the name of the mother: illegitimate and abandoned by his parents at birth, all he knows of his genealogy is the name "Gabrielle Genet" that appears on his birth certificate. Derrida studies the relationship between this abandoned, bastard child and his mother's name as characteristic of the text/signature relationship. Having established the two possible functions of the signature, Derrida adds that, whether the signature lies within or outside the text, "la perte secretee du reste" is recuperated by the signature. The text is somehow reappropriated by the name that signs it. In fact? "tout Ie texte .. se rassemblerait dans tel 'cerceuil vertical' . conane l'erection d'un seing" (GL, lO-R). The cerceuil vertical. an allusion to Genet's Miracle de la Rose, is a prison: the signature, then, would imprison the text, enclose it in a tomb. And, Derrida writes, 111e texte r(est)e--tombe, la signature r(est)e--tombe--le texte" (GL, ll-R). The syntax, the play of dashes and of parentheses allow for multiple readings. The text is, remains, falls, and falls again; the text is. remains, a tomb; the signature is, remains, falls, falls again, and even "fa!lD" (i.e. makes fall) the text; the signature is, remains, a text. Both the text and the signature erect themselves even as they fall, erect themselves in falling. We already perceive a certain conflict between the text and the signature: the text seems to be able to function on its own; it seems to kill off the father or mother that produces it. to function without Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 a proper name. Nevertheless, the signature tries to imprison the text, to make it a tomb or a dwelling for the signature. Derrida compares this conflict to a reciprocal work of mourning: ''La signature reste demeure et tombe. Le texte travaille a en faire son deu!L Et reciproquement" (GL, ll-R). The text tries to liberate itself from the signature, to engage in a play of signification without being encumbered by the signature which, in turn, works to reduce the play of signification by returning the text to its source, reducing the effects of language by centering the meaning of the text in the author's intentions. Signature and text work against each other, each trying to consume or bury the other. In the next paragraph, Derrida offers a definition of literary discourse: although it at first seems to have little to do with the question of the signature, the discussion that follows makes the connection clear. Derrida writes: Le grand enjeu du discours --je dis bien discours-- litteraire: la transformation patiente, rusee, quasi animale au vegetale, monumentale, derisoire aussi mais se tournant plutat en derision, de son nom propre, rebus, en choses, en nom de chases (Gr., Il-R). The passage presents itself as a general formulation of the nature of literature, or rather, of The term suggests that like other discourses (psychoanalytic, philosophical, scientific), literature orders, organizes, and even constitutes its object and, in so dOing, exerts a force on the world. 9 Derrida does not indicate specifically what the object of literary discourse might be but, since what is at stake is the transformation of its proper name into a thing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207 or common noun, it is reasonable to assume that its object is language i t s l f ~ or rather, the materiality of language. If literature is conceived as a set of norms, themes, practices, and!2E.21. then literary discourse would reflect or comment on th0s.e ~ by converting them into figures in the text. Derrida describes Genet's Journal du Voleur as a text that lise presentecomme Ie metalangage du langage qui ne se presente pas" (GL, 148-R). This again suggests that literary discourse would be a constant effort to create figures, things, in order to demonstrate how language operates. For this reason, literary discourse is essentially subversive: it is ridiculous, but in its foolishness it mocks; the ridiculous appearance conceals a craftiness. Li terary discourse undermines language, in particular meta-language, by constantly turning against itself. The phrase "quasi ammaIe ou vegeta1e" unquestionably refers to the meanings of Jean Genet's proper name, the two things or common nouns (plant and animal) that his name can be transformed into. It thus suggests that one of the ..!:..Q.Q.Q.i that literary discourse reflects upon or puts into play is precisely the question of the signature: the transformation in question is also that of the author's proper name into a thing. In fact, this passage immediately precedes the first use of Genet's name in Glas and announces the discussion of the act of naming (others and himself) in Genet's texts. This nomination is precisely of the kind that Derrida describes in relation to literary discourse: it consists of transforming proper names into names of things or using common nouns to refer to individuals. Derrida examines this practice Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of nomination in relation to the question of the signature, of the signature's function in relation to the (literary) text. 208 Flowers and Figuration. The phrase "quasi an1mal.e ou ves'tale, II in addition to alluding to Genet' 8 proper name, also echoes the first of two passages from Hegel that Derrida offers in the first pages of .Q!!.. We have already seen how the passage concerning the phallic colUIIIDS of India is intimately linked to Derrida' s autobiographies. We were led to conclude that the two passages are the sort of obsessive that Derrida sees as pointing to the unconscious structure of writing: the passages persist in Derrida' s mind and organize his text. In fact, the first passage, which we shall now consider, takes up the issues that will surface in the discussion of Genet I s signature and provide a link between Genet's autobiographies in relation to Derrida's. For the issues raised are also put into play in relation to Derrida IS signature; G1as also records the transformation of "Derrida" into words and things. The passage in question occurs in Hegel's discussion of religion in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Natural religion is the first phase of the development toward absolute religion and the religion of plants and animals is the second lIlOment in the syllogism of natural religion. Derrida focuses on the religion of flowers, which is not even a moment in the syllogism, but only part of the religion of plants and animals. The religion of flowers Irs I 'puise presque dans un passagetl and the passage from flowers to animals is a movement from innocence to culpability. The religion of flowers is innocent, whereas the religion Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of animals is guilty (coupable). In the religion of flowers "procl!!:de Ii sa propre mise en culpabilite, Ii sa propre animalisation" 8-L). This is because the flower, not yet a self, a subj ect, "1!tre-pour-soi destructeur" nevertheless is the t:epresentation (Vorstellung) of such a self: 'L 1 innocence de la religion des fleurs, qui est seulement representation de soi-m.eme sans Ie soi-meme (die nur selbsHesa Vot'stellung des Selbsts) passe dans Ie serieux de la vie agonistique, dans la culpabilite de la religion des animaux; la quietude de l' impuissance de l' indivi- dualite contemplative passe dans I' etre-pour-soi destructeur' (Hegel, quoted in GL, 8-L). The passage from the religion of flowers to the religion of animals 209 corresponds to the passage from to plant to animal. That is in fact the order that Derrida follows in discussing Genet I s signature in the first pages of Glas. At this point, however, we have no indication of the importance of the Hegelian passage to Derrida IS discussion; after quoting it in both French and German, he moves on immediately to the phallic columns of India. It is only 250 pages later that he deals with the passage in detail. As it turns out, the Hegelian passage that Derrida leaves out at this point. the moment that immediately precedes the religion of plants and animals (the first moment of the syllogism) corresponds to the transformation of Genet into genet, of the signature as origin or source of the text to the name as a figure within the text. For the first moment of natural religion is the religion of the sun. and the characteristic feature of this religion is that it does not involve Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 representation or figuration: "Cette premiere figure de la religion naturelle figure l' absence de figure, un solei1 purement visible" (GL, 265-L). The movement from the religion of the sun to the religion of plants and animals is the passage from the realm of pure phenomena- lity, of a light as source without reate, a light that therefore consumes itself, to t h ~ realm of figuration. The development of religion, in fact, proceeds as a development of the figure, as representation, work of art, language, and so forth. Moreover, the stage that follows the last phase of religion (Le. absolute religion) is absolute knowing and it, too, is characterized by the absence of figure: Le Sa (savolr absolu) n'a pas de figure, n'est pas une fig;rre, alors que la religion absolue est encore figure (vraie) et rep,resentation. D'on Ie cercle de cet enchainement syllogistique. Le premier moment du premier moment est aussi, comme Ie Sa, a l'autre bout, absence de figure, moment irrepresentable. La figure se derobe a 1 'origine et a. la fin de la religion avant et apres la religion; dont Ie devenir decrit litteralement une consumation de la figure, entre deux soleils (GL, 264-L). The stage of absolute knowing that follows absolute religion, which is also the last section of Hegel's text, brings an end to figuration, representation, destroys or consumes t h e ~ If the development of religion is assimilated to the operation of reading (of reading the Phenomenology, for example), we find that Hegel's ideal text is made up of figures or symbols that, like the bread and wine of the Last Supper, are consumed as they are apprehended; it is the model of a text that always returns to its source, consumed by the light of the sun. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 Tracing the passage from the religion of the sun to the religion of flowers, Derrlda offers an alternative to this apocalyptic mode of reading: "Alors au lieu de tout brUler on commence a aimer les fleurs. La religion des fleurs suit la religion du sole11" (GL, 268-L). This, then, is the model of reading that Genet's texts institute: they transform the signature as source, sun, non-figure, into the proper name as flower, that is, the proper name as comon noun. Genet's signature becomes a flower in two senses. First, the word refers to a type of flower in his texts and the proliferation of flowers can be taken as so many signatures. Secondly, the transforma- tian of proper Dame into common noun is i tse!f a rhetorical figure. that is, a flower of rhetoric, namely an antonomasia, a type_of syneq- doche that consists in taking a proper name for a common noun, or the reverse (GL, 204-R). As a result, gen@t is not only a figure for Genet I s signature but a figure for figuration in general. The flower describes at once Genet I 5 signature and the operation that allows the signature to be transformed into a thing. Furthermore, since the flower is "l'objet poetique par excellence" (Sartre, quoted in GL, 2l-R), it can also stand as a figure for poetry or poetic language. Derrida writes: En apparence, ced3.nt a la Passion de I' Ecriture, Genet s'est fait une fleur. Et il a mis en terre, en trE!.s grande pompe, mais auss! connne une fleur, en sonnant Ie glas, son nom propre, les noms de droit commun, Ie langage, la verite, Ie sens, la litterature, la rhetorique et, si possible, Ie reste. C I est du moins l' apparence. Et eela aurait commence par empoisonner les f1eurs de la rhetorique au de la poetique. Celles-ci, parodiees, alterees, transplantees, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. commencent tres vite a pourrir. Ces fleurs ne sont nl artific1elles ni tout a. fait naturelles. Pourquoi dit-on les 'leurs de rhetorique'? Et que serait la leur quand elle devient llune seulement des 'leurs de rhetorique'? (GL, 19-20-R) Derrida is claiming, first, that Genet's use of antonomasla is a 212 subversive activity: by figuring his signature as a thing in the text, he undermines the function of the signature which guarantees truth and meaning. Second, since the flower of rhetoric, the antonomasia, is itself a flower it turns the expression of lIflowers of rhetoric" into a pun and so parodies rhetoric and poetry. No doubt Derrida 1s also alluding to other aspects of Genet I s texts, for example, his use of mythological topa! and of sophisticated literary devices in order to render the life of the criminal-homosexual. That is why. in Derrida's formulation of what is at stake in literary the phrase "la transformation. . quasi animale ou vegetale. de son nom propre" can refer just as well to Genet's proper name as to the proper name of literature. The use of antonomasia is only one example of Genet's practice of commenting on and undermining literature by parodying it. On two occasions in the passage cited above, Derrida qualifies his appraisal of Genet's use of the signature. suggesting that the subver- sive aspect is only an appearance. If we take Derrida's discussion of Hegel as a commentary on Genet's practice of antonomasia, we discover the reason for this qualification. Hegel writes that the religion of flowers is innocent and the religion of animals guilty. M we have seen, the guilt is assumed with the to subjectivity, to an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 E!!tre-pour-soi inaugurated by a self-representation. The flower is innocent, but it is not entirely outside the opposition innocent/guilty: "On ne dec.lare son innocence (ce qu'on ne ferait pas du solei1 au de la plante) que dans la mesure au e11e est susceptible de coupable de pouvoir devenir coupable" (GL, 274-L). This is because the flower, though not yet a subject, incapable of the division or separation that constitutes the self, nevertheless is a representation (or pre-sentation, Vorstellung) of the etre-pour-soi that is realized in the animal. Derrida explains that the plant is torn away from itself but only by an external force rather than by an internal, subjective act: "La plante est arrachee a elle-meme, vers l'exterieur, par la lumiere," that is, by the sun. The plant's flower, however, "libere un progres dans Ie mouvement de reappropriation et de subjecti- vation" (GL, 273-L). The flower is not only acted upon, altered, made exterior .Qz light, it also produces its own light as color: "La lum.iere ne nent plus provoquer ou arracher du dehors, elle s' engendre au contraire spontanement depuis Ie dedans de la plante" (GL, 273-L). The flower does not possess true subjectivity; it does not represent itself as an other. The flower's color is only a figure, a Vorstellung, of self-representation, a selfless representation of the self (selbstlose Vorstellung des Selbsts). Nevertheless, it is the first step toward subjectivity in the form of a self-representation or self-figuration. This self-figuration, as we have seen, involves guilt and reappropriation, in particular, the reappropriation of the sun. This raises the question: if Genet's use of antonomasia is a self- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 figuration of this kind, is it also a reappropriation? Does the transformation of the signature as sun into a flower involve the reappropriation of the sun into the text? Are Genet I s flowers also little suns? Antonomasia. In fact, this is one of the major issues that Derrida addresses in his discussion of Genet I s use of antonomasia. Genet' 8 self-figuration is only one case of his use of antonomasia. In general, Genet's U.terary texts glorify thievery, cowardice, betrayal, prostitution, poverty,. homosexuality, all negative values of what Genet calls "votre monde." 10 Derrida explains that Genet often defines this "opiiration 'magnifiante tit as an act of naming (GL, ll-R). Thi.s leads Derrida to examine the function that Genet's naming of his characters plays in his writing. As it happens, this naming is also an antono- masia, sinc.e Genet often converts common nouns into proper names, calling his characters, for example, l'Mimosa, Querelle, Divine, Yeux- Verts, Culafroy, Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, Divers, etc" (GL, l3-l4-R). Derriela asks what function this act of nomination plays: Quand Genet donne l ses personnages des noms propres, des e s p ~ e s de singulatites qui sont des noms C01DQlUDS majuscules, que fait-ll'l Arrache-t-il violemment une identite soeiale, un droit de propriete absolue? Est-ce 18 l'operation politique 18 plus effective, la pt'atique revolutionnaire la plus signifiante? Ou bien, mais void la rengaine des contt'aires qui se t'ecoupent sans cesse, les baptise-t-il avec la pompe et Ie sacra --la gloirel est son mot-qulil confere toujours a la nomination'l (GL, 14-15-&). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 It Is not a question of deciding between these two possibilities. Genet I S use of antonomasia, l:f.ke his glorification and aesthetization of the underworld in general, is both an expropriation and a reappropriation, a decapitation and a "recapitation," a dissemination and a recapitalization (GL, 19-R). "Quand Genet donne des noms, il baptise et deDonce a la fois" (GL, 12-R). The use of antonomasia simply foregrounds what is true of naming in general: no name is absolutely proper to the person it designates; it operates within a system, classifies the individual, grants him a place within language and within the state. ll Further, the proper name can always be used to refer to someone else, can be repeated, expropriated and reappropriated. In this sense, antonomasia uncovers the lie of the proper name, which, like private property, is presumed to belong. properly to someone. Antonomasia s ~ then, a kind of theft, but one that reveals the original thievery involved in the accumulation of private property in the first place. As such, the use of antonomasia is subversive, even revolutionary: it uncovers the institutional (Le. merely conventional) status of the proper name. On the other hand, antonomasia is quite literally an appropriation, the making proper of a common noun. By adorning the word with a capital letter, one attempts to take it out of circulation, out of the system of language, and make it one's own. From this point of view, antonomasia is a kind of theft, but, like the orphan Genet who steals, not because he scorns private property but because he wishes to possess something that is truly his,12 the use of the rhetorical figure simply Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 reaffirms the institutional status of the proper name. The use of autonomasia) then, like the "operation 'magnifiante"'in general, is a double gesture that both calls into question the institution (of literature or of the proper name) and reaffirms it. Le (sur)nom propre donne relevela tetequitombe sur l' echafaud maia simultanement redouble l' arbitraire de la sentence par la decision nominante, consacre et glorifie la chute, coupe une f01s de plus, et grave --sur un monument litteraire (GL, 15-16-R). Or again: "Qui donne Ie nom et Ie seing approche sa lame de votre COll. Pour vous diviser. Et du meme geste, vous transforme en dieu" (GL, 19-R). Thus, like the in general, the name as antonomasia at once falls and is recuperated, idealized. Having concluded the discussion of Genet I s use of antonomasia in naming others, Derrida adds that "la division se compUque a peine quand Ie denominateur . s'institue au a'erige lui-meme dans sa propre signature. Habitat colossal: Ie chef-d'oeuvre" (GL, l7-R). In other words, Genet's transfonnation of his si'gnature into a thing, a plant or an animal, functions in the same (double) way as his naming of others. The major example of this antonomasia is drawn from Le Journal du Valeur. Genet wri tea: Je suis ne a. Paris Ie 19 decembre 1910. Pupille de l' Assistance Publique, 11 me fut impossible de connaltre autre chose de mon etat civil. Quand j 'eus vingt et un ans, j'obtins un acte de naissance. Ma mere s'appelait Gabrielle Genet. Mon pere reste inconnu Quand je rencontre dans la lande des leurs de geni!t, j'eprouve a leur egard une sympathie profonde Je suis seul au monde, et je ne suis pas silr de n'etre pas Ie roi --peut-etre Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. la fee de ses fleurs. Elles savent que je suis leur representant vivant. Elies sont mon embli!me naturel As Derrida points out, the passage begins with an account of Genet's civil and legal status, enumerating the facts found on a birth certificate: name, date and place of birth, mother's name, father's 217 name (unknown). It thus establishes Genet's pI.ace in a genealogy and in an institution (the state). In the lines that follow, however, Genet denies that genealogy: "Je suis seul au mande. II Taking on his s name and adorning it with a accent, Genet, rather than recognizing his. heritage. instead establishes his own natural genealogy. The antonomasia serves to extract the proper name from its civil status and places it in the natural world; as a result, Genet becomes, if not the mother of flowers, at least their king or faiLY. He scatters his name over the field of flowers and makes those flowers his family. The Name of the Mother. Derrida characterizes the operation whereby Genet takes on his mother's name in the following: Je. me surnomme fleur (Ie bapteme est une seconde naissance), je nais une fois de plus, je m'accouche comme une f1eur. La race etant condaumee, l'accent circonf1exe se sacre en ouvrant 1a bouche et tirant 1a langue .. S' eIE!.ve et se place 1ui-ureme en tete couronnee" (GL, 203-04-R). Thus, Genet becomes a mother, the mother of his own life, in taking on the name of his mother. "L'accent circonflexe" is Derrida's nickname Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 for the IInarrator" (as opposed to the author) of the Journal du Valeur; the also points to Genet's activity as a writer, his act of making himself into a rhetorical or poetic "flower" in his texts. Genet is both his own mother and the mother of his text. In one of the passages leading up to the au nom propre ll (GL, 193-R) cited above, Genet compares his activities to that of a mother of a monstrous child. Having described the baseness and poverty of his life of crime, he explains: ''Mon talent se developpait de donner un sens sublime a une apparence aussi pauvre. (Je De parle pas encore de talent litteraire.)1114 This talent consists in creating a religion of abjection, a new, mythical world Dut of the criminal underworld he is thrown into. This talent for transforming his life anticipates his literary talent, since Genet's texts involve precisely a transformation of this sort. In the next paragraph, Genet adds: Je me voulus semblable a. cette femme qui, a. I' abri des gens, chez elle conserva sa fille, une sorte de monstre hideux, difforme, grognant et marchant a. quatre pattes, stupide et blanc. En accouchant, son desespoirfut tel sans doute qu' i1 devint I' essence meme de sa vie. Elle decida d'aimer ce monstre, d'aimer la laideur sortie de son ventre oil elle s'etait elaboree, et de l'eriger devotieuse- mente Avec des soins devots. des mains douces malgre Ie cal des besognes quotidiennes, avec I' acharnement volontaire des desesperes elle s' opposa au mande, au mande elle opposa Ie monstre qui prit les proportions du mande et sa puissance. IS In a footnote. Genet adds that par les journaux j I appris qu' apres quarante ans de devouement cette mere arrosa d I essence --au de petrole-- sa fil1e endormie, puis toute la maison et mit Ie feu. Le manstre (la fi11e) succomba. Des flammes on retira Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. la viel11e (75 ans) et e11e fut sauvee, clest-a.-dire qu'elle comparut en Caur d'assises. 16 Derrida takes this scene as a description of Genet's relation to his 219 text. Taking on his mother's name, the name that he uses to sign his texts, Genet becomes the mother of his text and, by dispersing his name throughout it (through antonoraasia), keeps it to himself, devotes himself to it, and finally, kills it off, keeps it away from "the world," from the reader: Revant visiblement de devenir. a resonner, son propre (glas), d'assister a son propre enterrement aprEl,s avair aecouche de lui-meme ou opere sa propre decollation, 11 aura! t veilH! a bloquer tout ce qu' 11 eeri t dans la forme d'une tombe. D'une tombe qui se resume a son nom, dont la masse pierreuse ne deborde meme plus les lettres, jaunes comme l'ar ou comme la trahison, comme Ie genet (GL, 52-R). In this view, Genet's practice of antonomasia would stem from the desire for the proper, the wish to erect his signature into a tomb or dwelling or to shape his entire corpus into the tomb of his proper name. As his own mother, he would give birth to himself as a flower (a name or figure in a text) only to keep the text for himself. He would have written nothing but his own signature: Genet aurait, Ie sachant ou non silencieusement, laborieusement, minutieusement, obsessionellement, compulsivement, avec les gestes d'un voleur dans la nuit, dispose ses signatures il la place de tous lea objets manquanta. Le matin, VallS attendant a reconnaltre les chases familieres, VOllS retrouvez son nom partout, en grosses lettres, en petites lettres, en entier ou en marceaux, ou recompose. Il n'est plus U. mais vous habitez son au ses chiottes. Vous croylez dechiffrer, depister, poursuivre, vous etes compris. I1 a tout affecte de sa signature (GL, Sl-R). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 .Just as Genet scatters his name over a field of flowers by transforming it into ~ he disseminates his signature throughout the text through the operation of antonomasia. He does not sign once, but an infinite number of times; he does nothing but sign; his corpus 1s a sepulcher for the signature. The question remains, however: does Genet succeed in signing his text? Can any text, even a text l1ttered with signatures, be ultimately governed, regulated by a signature? Summarizing his argument that the flowers in Genet' 8 texts are anagrams or figures for tbe proper name, Derrida writes: Genet anagraumatise son propre, aeme plus que tout autre et glane son nom sur quoi qu'il tombe. Glaner egale lire Mais s1 cette (double) operation etait possible, absolument pratic:able ou centrale, s1 s'effectuait I'irrepressible desir qui I'agft (de mort ou de vie, eela revi.ent !c! au m@me), U n'y aurait n1. texte ni. reste. Encore moins celui-c1.. Le dsme serait abso1u, i1 s'emporterait, s'enlilvera1t lui-mime d'un coup d' aile (Gr., 55-56-R). Genet's desire to gather his dispersed signature back to himself, to reclaim his text, cannot but fail. The text falls; it escapes the prison of the signature; Derrida reads it and writes another text. No doubt tlglaner" is a pun on "glas" and thus refers to the operation of Derrida's text. De1Tida gleans and glosses Genet's text, reads it; in so doing, he steals it away from its author. Chiasmus: Denida and Genet. A text, like a name (common or proper), can always be appropriated. One can always use another's text to describe oneself, or name oneself in feigning to name another. If Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 Genet does not succeed entirely in signing his text, it is partly because Derrida also signs it, in an autobiographies that appropriates the other into the self. Following the preliminary discussion of the signature, he returns to the essay liCe qui est reate .... 11 which, as we saw, serves as a model of sorts for Glas.. Describing the form of Genet's short essay, Derrida writes: "X, chiasme presque parfait, plus que parfait, de deux textes mis en regard l'un de l'autre" (Gr., 53-R).. The chiasmus in question is. in the first place, the effect produced by placing two texts on the same page so that they exchange gazes, gloss each other .. As Derrida realizes, however, the form of Genet's t ~ t stages the experience that the narrator relates in the left-hand column. The event in question takes place in a train: seated in his compartment, the narrator happens to look up and catches the gaze of the stranger sitting across from him. He has the overwhelming experience of looking, not into the eyes of another, but into his own eyes. He relates the "desagreable experience" in these terms: Ce que j 'eprouvais je ne pus Ie traduire que sous cette forme! je m'ecoulais de mon corps, et par les yeux, dans celui du voyageur en meme temps que Ie voyageur s'ecoulait dans Ie mien . Qu'est-ce done qui g'etait ecoule de mon corps--je m'ec . ,-- et qu'est-ce qui de ce voyageur s'ecoulait de son corps?17 Thus, the autobiographical essay relates an exchange of identities, the reversal of position between self and other. Derrida associates Genet's "je m'ec" with, among other things, "je m'ecrivais," suggesting that the activity of writing (oneself) involves such an exchange of identity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 This exchange is quite common in Glas: the gloss that describes Genet's writing turns back upon itself and comments on Derrida's textual practice. There are, for example, numerous instances of antonomasia in Glas, the transformation of Derrida's signature into a common Doun: most appear in the ~ of the Genet colwno and involve a chiasmic movement between Genet and Derrida. For instance, Derrida takes up the specific details of Genet's life and shapes them into his theory about the signature, then staging this theory in the play of his own proper name. One of the first of these moments appears as a judas that runs alongside Derrida' s discussion of naming in Genet's texts. He first quotes a passage from Le Journal du Valeur where the narrator, discussing the name of another, then turns to consider his own name: Armand ~ t i t en voyage. Encore que j'entendisse parfois qu'on l'appelat de noms differents, nous garderons celui- ci. Moi-meme n'en suis-je pas, avec celui de Jean Gallien que je porte aujourd'hui, a mon quinze au seiziE!me nom? (quoted in GL, 12-R). In his gloss, Derrida suggests that he will remotivate the apparent arbitrariness of the proper name "Gallien" and of the initials "J .G." This comment anticipates the discussion of the subj ective remotivation of the sign and its relation to the unconscious and too mental illness, notably schizophrenia (see GL, llO-R SQ and passim). In the next phrase, Derrida adds that in Genet's Pompes Funebres, the initials are not "J.G. II butoIlJ.D." Thus, in a move that parallels Genet's shift from Armand's name to his own, Derrida introduces his initials into Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 the discussion and, in so doing, remotivates the arbitrary signifier that designates Genet. In the following paragraph, still ostensibly discussing Genet. Derrida raises a number of issues about the signature, the text, and their relation to death and genealogy. As he proceeds, he insinuates his name and his text into the analysis: Quant au sigle, dans Pompes funE!bres, cleat J.D., Jean D Le D majuscule a qui 11 echoit de representer Ie nom de famille ne revient pas forcement au pE!:re. I1 interesse en tous cas la mere et clest e11e qui beneHcie de son titre Quant a celui qui organise lea Pompes funebres --c I est-a.-dire littera-ires-- de J.D., dira-t-on que clest l'auteur, 1e narrateur, 1e narrataire, Ie lecteur. mais de quoi? I1 est a 1a f01s 1e double du mort (colossos), qui reste vivant apri!s lui, son fils, mais aussi son pi!re et sa mi!re II a toujours eu peur qu'on lui vole sa mort et comme cela ne saurait manquer d I arriver a qui n' en a quI une il a d I avance occupe taus les lieux au t;a meurt. Bien joue? Qui fait mieux, qui dit mieux, Ie mort (GL, l2-R). In these few sentences, Derrida raises elliptically virtually all of the issues that he discusses throughoutGlasin relation to the signature. He start out from two common assumptions: first, that the proper name is the name of the father and second, that the signature indicates the father of the text. With the example of Genet, Derrida can blur the distinction between these two uses of "father ll since Genet's name is that of his mother and he characterizes himself as a kind of mother. Genet's texts contest the assumption that the name and the signature are (only) a relation to the father, since his name involves the mother as well. As we shall see, this issue is raised again in the context of Derrida I s signatures. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 The next question raised is the location of the text's meaning or effect: who "organizes" Pampes funlbres or, in an alternate reading, who organ1zes J.D. 's obsequies? Does the author or narrator J.D. (Genet) construct his text and his death or is i.t J.D. the readerl narratee (Derrida) who stages the text and conducts the funeral'? Since the initials J.D. refer to both the author and the reader of the text, they blur the distinctions between these various selves. Furthermore, the expression "pampes funiibres" is obviously closely associated with a Itglas lt and, as we have seen, Q!!!. presents itself as a rite of burial. Thus, Illes Pampes funebres de J.D." may refer to Genet's text, to Genet's funeral (that is, to the operation of losing one's life in producing a text), to Derr1da' s construction of Genet 1 s text, or to Derrida's Q!!!. (this last possibility cannot fail to implicate the reader of Glas as well). As a result of this ambiguity, the next sentence is able to describe a number of possible relationships. First, "le double du mort" refers to the author of the text or to the figure of the author that the text produces. If fIle mort" is the autobio- graphical subject in the text (Genet transformed i n t o ~ a figure in the text) I then the author both produces the text, is its father and/or mother) and is produced by it (the reader constructs the figure of the author from the text). The author doubles the subject but 1s not identical to it. This description applies to both "J.D. 1 s, II to Q!!!. as well as Pompes ftmebres. If, on the other hand, it is the reader who organizes the text, then the "double du mort" is Derrida, the J.D. whose initials double Genet's. Derrida rewrites Genet's text, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. imitates it, doubles it, claims it as an ancestor; at the same time, he also (re)produces Genet, stitches together a tissue of quotations or an anthology of Genet's writings. He is, then, both Genet's son and his father and mother. 225 In the last section of the judas, Derrida speaks of Genet's fear that someone will steal his death from him, that he will be unable to die his own death. As we shall see, this issue is also related to the signature and the text: the signature, writes Derrida, is a kind of death and one way of guarding against this death is to multiply it, ta multiply the signatures throughout the text. Thus, Genet tries to occupy his tomb by scattering his signature throughout the text. But what of Derrida, who not only appropriates Genet 1 5 text, but also steals his initials, his signature, making his antonomasia coincide with Genet's? If it is the reading of a text that prevents it from being proper to its author, then it is Derrida who is stealing away Genet I s death and his t e x t ~ stealing it in order to stage his own death. Deja and Derriere. Since the name "Derrida" does not have any semantic value in French, Derrida I s use of antonomasia involves a number of mutations of his name: the two most common are "Derriere" and "Deja." As for Genet, the figure of antonomasia stands not only for Derrida IS signature, but also for the operation of figuration, of antonomasia itself. And, as for Genet, the signature carries with it a certain relation to death and to his ancestry. Thus, he writes in a ~ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Derriere: c:haque fois que 1e mot vient en premier, s'11 s'eerit done apri!s un point, avec une majuscule, quelque chose en mot se metta1t il y reconnaitre Ie nom de mon pere, en lettRs dorIes sur sa tombe, avant mime qu'1l y flit. A fortiori quand je lis Derriere le rideau" (GL, At the beginning, the term. "Derriere" seems to :tnvolve a simple, 226 la.rgely unmotivated referential1ty: its similarity to "Derrida l1 leads him to recognize, not his own name, but that of his father. But the word quickly takes on its semantic value as well. The word IIDerriere" points to something behind, specifically, to the corpse that lies behind the tombstone. The word "derriere" is Dot itself behind; it is the name engraved on the outside of the tombstone; it stands in the place of the father; and it points to the father presumed to lie behind 1t. Oddly, this reading of ''Derriere" as the father's name on a tombstone occurs even before the father's death; the tombstone points to something behind itself, but the grave is empty. This undermines the simple reference of the proper name. Not only does the word refer to nothing behind it, it appears to bring about the illusion of reference. "Quelque chose en moi se mettait a y ree:onnaitre.. II. it is as if the word itself, or the meaning of the word, invoked the image of a t'omb, and of the father within. Of course, Derrida describes the functioning of the signature or of the proper name on the cover of a book in precisely the same terms. The signature is not simply an outward mark of a private intention; it is the mark.that produces the intentional subject. Or, to take up the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 metaphor that Derrida plays with persistently: the name of the book's "father" appears on the cover of the book, but its very appearance the text announces the death of the father and makes of the book a tomb for its author. In the next paragraph, the l:l.nk between "DerriE5.re" as the proper name of Derrida's father, and 'tnerrlere fl as figure for the signature in general, is made explicit: ''Derriere n'est-ce pas toujours deja derriere un rideau, un voile, un tissage. Un texte toisonnant. " (GL, SO-R). Whereas in the fi.rat instance, the word "derriere" was visible on the outside of the tombstone and only indicated something else presumed to lie derriere, it now appears that the signature "Derriere" is itself behind a. text, and a text "toisonnant." The term alludes to Derrida I s discussion of the notion of text as a textile, a gannent woven of various threads. He cites Freud's belief that women invented weaving out of the desire to weave their pubic hair into a penis or, at least, to cover their lack with the braided pubic hair (GL, 79-R). Thus, if the text is a toison, what it conceals is precisely a lack: if the signature lies behind the text, the signature is simply an empty space, like the father's empty tomb. The text and signature have exchanged places: in the first formulation, the was on the outside; the text was a tomb; and the grave was empty. In the second example, the text is the covering or veil; the signature is within, but void. Thus, in these few liues, Derrida stages the two functions of the signature that he posits at the beginn.i.ng of Glas. In the first case, the signature is a tombstone, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228 a cereeu!! vertical that stands before an empty grave; the signature is erected as a monument and the text disappears behind it. In the second case, the text works to hide the signature; the signature itself is void and disappears behind the weave of the text. Derrida thus stages the reciprocal work of mourning between text and signature in relation to his own (and his father's) name. Following the allusion to the "texte toisonnant, II Derrida quotes Genet: Un autre de mea amants orne de ruhans sa toison intime. Un autre a tresse pour la tete de noeud de son ami, miniscule, une couronne de paquerettes. Avec ferveur un culte pba11ique se celebre en chambre, derriere Ie rideau des braguettes boutonnees (Gr., 80-R). This quotation continues Derrida' 5 train of thought, which follows the argument de 1a gaine. Whereas the "texte toisonnant" alludes to castration and the means of disguising or compensating for it, this passage deals with another kind of fetishism; the ribbons and crown of daisies do not substitute for an absent phallus, but adorn an existing member. If the signature is seen as a phallus that can be cut off from the body of the text, this fetishism involves a multiplication of the signature, a staging of the signature in the text. Like the scene of Genet 1 s tribute to his dead friend lying rigid on the catafalque, the above passage moves by association from the "derriere Ie rideau" that points to a corpse, the father 1 s dead body, to a "derriere Ie rideau" that refers to the phallus behind the buttoned fly. This association of the corpse with the erect penis, and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. benefit Derrida derives from the association, is developed when he turns to speak of the signature as his own death. Instrucing us to "lire Ie comme sigle, II he explains: Quand je signe, je suis deja. mort. J' a1 a peine Ie temps de signer que je suis deja. mort. Je dois abreger l'ecriture, d'ou Ie sigle, parce que la structure de I' evenement I signature' porte ma mort en lui-meme. En quoi 11 n'est pas un 'evenement' et ne signlfie peut-etre rien, eerit depuis un passe qui u'a jamais ete present et depuis la mort de qui n I a jamais eta vivant. Le passe n I est plus un present passe, nl Ie futur un present a venir. Et toutes les valeura qui dependent de cet axiome, Ie sigle les enraye. Elle ne fonctionnent deja. plus, elles sont d'avance defuntes. Iei meme (GL, 26-R). 229 "Deja," a shorthand form for "derrida jacques" (m, 482), illustrates the function of the signature that we have already examined in the context of La Voix et 19 Phenomene and "Signature Evenement Contexte. II The is slJ.ppoEted to guarantee the identity of the subject or author, also puts him in peril since the signature can function independently of the author's intention. Thus, it kills off the "father" of the discourse and takes his place even as it establishes the link between author and discourse. Furthermore, since the Signature is never an event in the sense of a unique, non-repeated, non-divisible act, but rather a repetition of another signature, it undermines the very notion of event, of the here and now. Since the signature brings the legal subject into being retroactively, the subject is already dead when the signature announces its birth. The signature announces the absence of the signer as well as his presence, both links and separates the text and the au thor. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230 Being dead, however, has certain advantages, especially when, as we have seen, the corpse is conSistently associated wi.th an erection. Derrida wri tea: !!!i!. La mort a dja. eu lieu, avant tout. Comment dechiffrer cette etrange anteriorite dluo Mi! qui vallS met toujaurs un cadavre sur les bras? II veut que vallS ne puissiez jamais vaus defaire du corps tres raide que sa litterature, sa pompe funebre, aura banda pour vallS. Comment seduire, comment se faire aimer sans vallS dire 18 suis mort? Qui fait mieux? Qui dit mieux? Le.M.i! que je suis sonne son propre glas, signe lui-meme son arret de mort, vallS regarde d' avance, vaus volt avancer sans rien comprendre a ce que vaus aurez aiure, -sulvant, en colonne, la marche funebre dlune erection dont tout Ie mande entendra desormais disposer (GL, 92-R). The expression IIQui fait mieux'l Qui dit meux'll! echoes Derrida' s comments about Genet's desire to die his own death and his efforts to guard against the theft of his death. Derrida is expressing the same desire. By pronouncing himself dead on arrival, he manages to seduce the reader with a monument erected to his death; he delivers his text, his cadaver, to the reader who cannot be rid of it. The text remains proper to him; the reader can do nothing but bear the text or pay tribute to it in a eulogy, knell, or funeral march. We are already approaching the figure of the mother who bears a child only to keep it to herself, then finally, to kill it, take it back into herself. Derrida develops this train of thought in another use of antonomasia: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Je suis (mort) signifie que je auls derriere. Absolument de-r1i!re, Ie Derriere qui n'aura jamais eta vu de face, Ie Deja que rien n' aura precede, qui slest done: conc;u et enfante lui-meme, mds comme cadavre au corps glorieux (Gr., 97-R). 231 "Derriere, II earlier associated with the name of the father, now clearly represents the mother, the signature as mother who gives birth to a child already dead, a child who will never belong to anyone besides herself, who will never venture out of the home. In another passage, this 1s developed even further: Je suis la mere. Le texte. La me.re est --tout ce que je suis, fais, parais-- la mere suit. Comme elle suit absolument. elle survit toujours a ce qu'elle aura engendre, assistant a la mise en terre de ce dont elle a prevu la mort Ah! si ma mere pouvait 01' assister a mon enterrement (G!., 134-R). tole begin to see why the signature of preference is that of the mother, and why Derrida chooses to dress himself as a woman: in so doing, he can give birth to himself, kill himself, bury himself, and thus remain absolutely proper to himself. Nevertheless, Derrida recognizes the impossibility of this desire. Alluding once more to the details of Genet's genealogy, he writes: On sait que 1a paternite s'attribue toujours au terme d'un proces, dans 1a forme d'un jugement. Donc d'une generalite. Mais 1a mere? Surtout celIe qui se passe de pere? Ne peut-on esperer une genealogie pure, purement singuliere. .? Le propre n I est-il pas fina1ement de 1a mere? (GL, 170-R) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232 That. in any case, 1s the hope or desire. But in the next paragraph, alluding to Genet t s encounter wi th a thief or beggarwoman whom he imagines to be his mother, Derrida concedes: Pas plus que Ie glas qu'elle met en branle. La milre est une voleuse et une mendiante. Elle s'approprle tout mais parce qu'elle u'a rien en propre (GL, 170-R). The mother 1s a thief: the signature as mother steals its status from. the state and from. language. To appropriate and reappropriate the signature 1s to admit that nothing is proper, not even one's own death. Thus, explaining that through his use of antonomas:La, he has given birth to himself as a corpse, Derrida adds: Le Derriere et Ie DGj a me protegent, me rendent 1111sible Toutes les fleurs de rhetorique dans lesquel1es je disperse ma signature, dans lesquelles je m'apostrophe et m' apotrope, lisez-les aUBsi comme des formes de refou1ement. 11 s t agi.t de repousser 1a pire menace (Gr., 9 7 ~ R . What is repressed in the recourse to antonomasia, in the effort to sign and resign the text, to place the signature ~ in the text so as to remain unreadable, is precisely the possibility of being read. Derrida bas said that Genet's text is only readable because, at some point, he has failed in keeping it to himself, subsumed under his signature. Derrida admits the same thing in reference to his own text: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Vaus ne pouvez vaus interesser a ce que je fais iei que dans la mesure au vous auriez raison de croire que --guelque part-- j e ne sais pas ce que j e fais.. .. .. n1 ce qui slagit lei.. ...... II ne suffit pas d'@tre ruse, 11 faut disposer d' une theorie generale de la ruse gui en faase partie. Ce qui revient a passer aux aveux, inconscients bien sur.. L' inconscient est quelque chose de tres theorique (GL, 76-77-R) .. 233 Glas is a general theory of the ruse: it analyzes Genet's desire for the proper, and his various tricks and acts of thievery that this desire leads him to commit. But Glas also repeats and appropriates Genet's ruse, and the theory that it develops is itself part of that ruse. When Derrida makes his confessions, reveals his obsessions, he too is trying to steal, and seduce. The unconscious is not only theoretical, not only capable of building a theoretical system, it is also ruse. But the rLise fails to the extent that the unconscious is not proper to the self. At some point, Derrida does not know what he is doing; the confessions stem from an unconscious that speaks through him but is not controlled by him. After all the tricks, conscious and unconscious, there is a text to be read, and the reader's interest in it lies precisely in those moments on Glas that reveal"un 'je m'ecarte,' ou 'je m'ecrase'" (GL, 76-R). Derrida locates the interest of bis autobiographies in the revelations he makes in spite of himself, those that stem from the unconscious and point to what he calls, in reference to Freud's autobiographics, Ill' inanalyse. II Glas and the Question of Genre. Glas is certainly not what one normally thinks of as !lautobiography. II It is not a narrative; it does Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234 not fulfill an autobiographical pact; and it reveals very little about Derrida I s personal life. We have seen how quf.ckly an apparent reference to something outside the t x t ~ to the father, for instance, 1s incorporated into the play of signification in the text. In fact, Derrida has said that "i1 y a beaucoup d'evenements 'reels, 1 comme on dit I autobiographiques, I cryptes, riHnvestis par la logique de la scene dans Glas, mais lIs ne sont la que dans la mesure de cette logique interne" (JA, 113). In other words, ~ constantly subordinates reference to rhetoric or to the play of language. But Glas 1s auto- biographical in the sense that it reflects upon the unstated assumptions of autobiography --the relation of self to other, of self to language, and of signature to text-- by placing en abyme the figure of the writer. In a text that deals theoretically with the family, the subject, and the signature, Derrida incorporates the figure of a son, a mother, a father, a subject, and a signature; Glas reveals the obsessions of the writer and describes the writer's activity as he writes. And, although Glas may not correspond to our genre definitions,18 it c.orresponds almost exactly to the structure that Derrida traces in Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, a structure he calls Itl' autobiographie de I' ecriture. 1I Developing a theory of the institutional status of autobiography, he turns once more to Freud; the theory c.annot fail to turn back on him. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI TIlE FORT IDA OF AUTOBIOGlW'HY Psychoanalysis and the Postal Service. La Carte Pastale de Socrate a Freud et Au-dela (1980) takes as its point of departure ce qui va des postes, des postes en tous genres, a la psychanalyse pour renvoyer d'un singulier la psychanalyse freudienne, a une histoire et a une technologie du courrier, a quelque theerie gem!rale de l' envoi et de tout ce qui par quelque telecommunica- tion pretend se destiner (CP, 7). 235 Derrida raises the question of bow a philosophical or literary heritage, for example, is transmitted to Freud (and beyond), and how psycho- analysis is transmitted or willed to those presumed to be its heirs. What are the conditions for Freud's message arriving intact? Can Freud decide who shall receive the message? can he limit his heirs? What sorts of detours and delays must occur for the message to arrive at all? And if Freud's designated heirs or addressees are not there to receive it, what shall happen to the message? Shall it remain in restante (general delivery) or be returned to sender? These are questions of la paste. But Derrida writes that he is concerned with "pastes en tous genres," that is, with both la poste and Ie poste. The noun designates not only another form of telecommunication (radio and television sets) but also a military watchpost, that is, the point that marks the boundary between enemy terri tory and an "inside" that needs Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to be guarded against foreign invasion. Derrida characterizes the institution of psychoanalysis as an outpost of this kind, determined to guard against any intrusion of foreign ideas or disciplines. Finally, un poste is also a political or academic post, that is, a position of power within an institutional structure. It thus points to the power exercised by the institution of psychoanalysis and by those who fill posts in that structure. 236 The two central essays of La Carte Pastale use the figure of the postal service to bring together a number of issues relating to psychoanalysis as an institution. "Speculer--sur 'Freud, tI. a reading of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, unites three aspects of Freud's essay under the question of t h e ~ first, the relation Freud develops between a dominant pleasure principle and a supposedly subservient reality principle that 7 however, may deflect the organism from its goal of p1easure 7 is vie.wed by Derrida as a postal system of relay and deferral; second7 the example that Freud records of a child at play who, under the dominance of the pleasure principle7 manipulates a spool attached to a string, sending and receiving his own "message," also offers certain clues about the nature of the ~ ; third, this general structure serves to describe Freud's position as the ~ of psycho- analysis, author of a testament, a letter to his heirs, which must submit to the "postal principle ll in order to arrive. "Le Facteur de la Verite ll also deals with the question of the heritage of psychoanalysis by focusing on an essay by Jacques Lacan, the self-declared heir to Freud and, in particular, by countering Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237 Lacan I s claim (in reference to Poe I S "The Purloined Letter") that "la lettre arrive toujours a sa destination." This also affords Derrida the opportunity to examine the relation of psychoanalysis to literature and to question Lacan' s use of Poe I s sbort story as a simple illustration of his theory of the signifier. These two essays are framed by texts of a more personal sort: the last portion of the book is a curious interview between Derrida and members of the Parisian community of psychoanalysts regarding his theories and writings on Freud. In the opening pages of "Du tout, II Derrida registers his uneasiness at having been invited to a place "jusqu'a ce soir reserve au dedans, au pretendu dedans de l'enclos analytique auquel je auis cense etre etranger" (CP, 533) and even refers to the situation as "ce saloon surcharge de toute sorte de bandes plus ou mains fastes, plus ou moins pre:tes a la detente. qui guettent du coin de I' oeil depuis leur comptoir" (CP. 529). It is thus as an outsider that Derrida approaches the problems of psychoanalysis, and one of the crucial problems is precisely the division between an inside and an outside. The first portion of La Carte Postale. a lengthy preface of sorts. presents itself as the remains of a correspondence spanning two years. between "Jacques Derrida" (who signs the first letter. which is addressed to the reader) and an unnamed or multinamed lover. It is thus both an enactment and a further discussion of the structure, history. and technology of t ~ postal system: the letters or envois not only discuss such matters as the authenticity of Plato I sextant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238 letters, the relation between public and private writings, and the past and future of the postal service but, in their form and fate, demon- strate all that can happen to letters en route. In this analysis of the history or transmission of a science, of the legacy Freud leaves to his heirs, autobiographies is a central concern. Psychoanalysis 1s peculiar in that it is a "science qui pour une fois est essentiellement insepar::::.ble, en tant que science, de quelque chose comme un nom propre, comme un effet de nom propre" (CP, 353). Founded by a single individual, a Robinson Crusoe working in isolation, and founded on that individual t s self-analysis, psychoanalysis owes its greatest discoveries to Freud's insights into himself. But Freud's autobiographies is not merely the record of his self-analysis: his writings inscribe as well what he could not analyze, and it is to this inanalyse that Derrida directs his attention. In "Du Tout," he explains the necessity of this strategy: Ce reste dlinanalyse qui. . rapporte (la psychanalyse) en instance au dehors absolu du milieuanalytique ne jouera pas 1a forme d'une limite autour du psych- analytique, ce a quoi Ie psychanalytique comme theorie et comme pratique nlaurait helas pas eu acees, comme slil lui restait du terrain a gagner. Pas du tout. Ce cet inanalyse, cela aura ete ce sur quai et autour de quoi se sera eonstruit et mobilise Ie mouvement analytique: tout aurait ete construit et calcule pour que cet inanalyse soit herite, protege, transmis intact, con- venablement legue, consolide, enkyste, encrypte (CP, 547). In other words, what Freud could not see, but which nevertheless found its way into his texts, does not simply function as a gap in psycho- analytic knowledge or as a limit beyond which psychoanalysis cannot Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 progress: that blind spot actually constitutes the condition for psychoanalytic knowledge in the first place. it cannot simply be eliminated by the supplementary work of later generations. The blind spot is part of the very structure of the science, the condition for its transmission, and to eliminate it would radically psycho- analysis as an institution. For this reason, Derrida explains, the analysis or "decryptage ll of the inanalyse de Freud "ne peut plus venir du simple et pretendu dedans de la psychanalyse. Et 11 n'aura pas un effet partiel d'amenagement all de reforme" (CP, 547). Nevertheless, this critique does not come simply from outside psychoanalysis, either: Derrida locates the strategic position of the critic, his own position, on the margins of the institution, both wihtin and outside it. And, as in Glas and Eperons, this position is that of women in a genealogy pre- sumed to pass from father to son. Thus, Derrida places himself in Freud's female l1ne, among the daughters or the daughter's sons. In his autobiographies, begun in "Envoislf but continued through the other essays of La Carte Postale, he analyzes that position and even hints at the blindness involved in this strategy of becoming woman. For, in effect, Derrida comes to occupy and to replicate Freud's blind spot: Freud excludes women as other and neglects the specificity of female sexuality; Derrida appropriates it and this appropriation is strate- gically necessary for his project of deconstruction. It is clear that, for Derrida, autobiographies is not simply the record of a life, or of a relation between self and self: it involves Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240 necessarily the other, and in particular, the legacy which the self inherits from his ancestry. If the subject is not a discreet indiv:l- dual, but a construct formed through a relation w{th the di!Hi-la, then autobiography can only be genealogical in nature, the record of a struggle between the self and those who precede it. Furthermo.:-e, autobiography is testamentary in two senses: not only because the writing of the self is a relation of one's own death, but also because it takes the form of a legacy that is passed on from one generation to the next. Finding himself heir to Freud I s legacy, and, increasingly, the influential father in a deconstructive "movement," Derrida puts into practice the theory of autobiography developed in his essays on Freud, and places ~ his own position in the genealogy of psycho- analysis. The_ Legacy of Beyond the Pleasure Principle ~ . In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud attempts to posit a drive more primitive and more fundamental than the pleasure principle (the tendency of an organism to keep the level of excitation as low as possible in order to avoid unpleasure). This primitive drive, manifested in a compulsion to repeat, would stem from the organism's desire to return to an earlier, inorganic state, that is, to "die its own death. II The search for the evidence of such a death drive ~ ) leads Freud toward philosophical speculation and biological determinism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 In the second chapter of having underlined the necessity for new avenues of research concerning these fundamental Freud takes up the example of the so-called "war neuroses." The dreams of patients who have suffered a severe trauma and who have falled 111 of neuroses as a result ''have the characteristic of repeatedly bringing the patient back into the situation of his aceident, a situation from which he wakes in anotber fright" (XVIII, 13). This tendency is a challenge to Freud's theory that dreams are without exception "wish fulfillments" and. it is also the first challenge to the presumed dominance of the pleasure principle. The repetition of an unpleasurable, traumatic experience goes against the assumption that the organism seeks to avoid unpleasure. It thus points to a compulsion to repeat (in essence, a compulsion for autobiography since it is life expe- riences that are '1'epeated) that is independent of the pleasure principle. Freud will take up the subjec.t of war neuroses in the third chapter of his essay and will link the repetition of unpleasurable experiences in dreams to the repetition of ch:f.ldhood traumas that occurs in the analytic session. Only at this point will he finally advance a tentative hypothesis concenrl.ng a compulsion to repeat. In this second chapter, however, Freud only slightly hints at the problem raised by war neuroses and, just when one would expect him to draw the consequences or advance a claim, he abruptly breaks offt At this point I propose to leave the dark and dismal subject of the tra'l.Ul1!ltic neurosis and pass on to examine the method of working employed by the mental apparatus in one of its earliest normal activities-I mean in children's play Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242 What Freud inserts at this point is an autobiographical incident, a personal observation of a child with whom Freud lived for several weeks. What he does not indicate is that the child in question is his grandson Ernst, the elder son of his daughter Sophie. In any case, Freud interrupts his thesis regarding a compulsion to repeat experiences from one's life in order to repeat an experience from his life. That ls, the anecdote :1s an .!!!!!!2!!. of the tendency Freud describes in reference to bis neurotic patients. Derrida cODments: I1 est done press d'en ven1r lii, au risque d'abandonner un probleme non regle qul!l devra retrouver plus tard, et surtout au risque de ue faire Bvancar en den (ce qui sera en effet le cas) la demonstration dlun au-delii du PP (principe du plais1r). L'enjeu d'un tel empressement aerait done autre, d'un autre ordre. L'urgence ue se lai.sse pas dchiffrer sur 1a portee de la declaration demonstrative, de l' argumentation manifeste (CP I 318-19). From the point of view of a reader who expects a logical development that moves step by step toward its conclusion, the intervention of the autobiographical anec.dote does not make sense. For Derrida. this is not simply a clumsiness of exposition on Freud's part; the form of the text is motivated by other considerations. Derr1da aims to show that the interest of the example does not lie, as the "canonical" reading would have it, at the level of the demonstration. The "argument de la bobine, II as he calls it, cannot answer the question that psychoanalysts have asked it, namely: "Avons-nous raison, nous psychanalystes, de la domination absolue du PP?" (CP, 315). In fact, writes Derrida, Freud ",!!! retient Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243 ~ de cette histoire du !Q.!.!/.!!!. du moins dans sa demonstration en vue dlun au-dela du ppll (CPt 315). Derrida looks for the significance of the chapter in relation e ~ e e n 'Freud I $ reporting of the scene (1e rapportant) and the scene reported (Ie rapporte): On cons tate que quelque chose se repete. Et (1' a-t-on jamais fait?) il faut identifier Ie proces repetitif non seulement dans Ie contenu, les exemples, Ie materiau decrits et analyses par Freud mais deja, ou encore, dans l'ecriture de Freud, dans la demarche de son texte, dans ce qu'il fait autant que dans ce qu'il dit (CP, 315-16). We may distinguish three types of repetition in this chapter. In the first place, Ernst repeats his game with the toy spool; the spool returns to his hand only to leave again, disappears only to reappear. Second, Freud observes Ernst's game repeatedly not, as he says, over a period of weeks, but over a span of years. He reports five different games, each leading to a slightly different interpretation, of which the spool game is only the paradigm, the "complete game." Third, Freud makes repeated attempts in this chapter to draw a theoretical conclusion from the observation he has made. What Ernst does repeatedly with his toy, Freud does with the thesis of a death drive: every time he seems about to catch hold of it, to conclude that it exists, he defers that conclusion, sends it away once more. Since Freud's writing mimes the grandson's game which it reports, it appears that Freud is in a state of identification. with Ernst: sO)!lething in the scene so captivates him that he feels compelled to repeat it. Since, as we shall see, Freud interprets Ernst's game as the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244 enactment of a certain relation to his fam1ly (his mother especially t but also his father and younger brother), Freud's interest in the scene and his miming of it at the level of writing has to do with bis own relationship to the same individuals (his daughter, sou-in-law, and grandsons) and to the family of psychoanalysis that they come to represent. Derrida wri tea: Je parle que ce double fort/da coopere, que cette cooperation coopere a. iIiitierla cause psycbanalytlque, a. mettre en mouvement Ie 'mouvement' psychanalytique, ! l'itre mime, a l'.!m, mime, a son litre autrement dit a la structure singulie.re de sa traditlOt1, je dirai. au nom propre de cette I science I. qui gsrde a. son histoire un rapport a nul autre semblable Si, dans l' wnement food de cette cooperation, Ie reste Inanalyse d 'un inconscient demeure, s1 ce reste travaille et constrult de son alti!iritli l'autobiographie de cette ecriture testamentaire, alors je gage qutil sera transmis les yeux fermes par tout Ie lDOuvement du retour a Freud. Le reste qui travaille en silence la scene de cette coopliration est sans doute Ulisib1e (maintenant ou a jamais, te11e est une restance au sens ou je I' entends) mais i1 definit la seule urgence de ce qui reste a faire, a vrai dire son seul. inti!irit. Intlirit d'one rfplit1tion suppl&mentaire? ou inter@t dlune transforation genetique, d'un renouvel1ement dep1ac;ant effectivement l'essentiel? Cette alternative est infinne, e1le est d' avance rendue b01teuse par la demarche qu' on peut lire ici, dans 1e document bizarre qui nous occupe (CP, 324-25). Thus, Denida takes Freud's reporting of the scene as a moment in his self-analysis, one that marks an important point in the psychoanalytic movement. In the scene that heud sees played out before him, he finds something that responds to his desire for a science that retains its identity, its identity with the proper name of Freud. We shall later examine certain events that took place in the psychoanalytic movement Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245 at the time Freud was writing Beyond; such events give Derrida' s interpretation a certain plausibility. We note, however, that that interpretation is taken on as a wager, and as an impossible task to make readable what is perhaps destined to remain unread. And Derrida suggests that his reading may be simply a "repetition supplementaire," that is, aa interpretation that compulsively repeats, at the third degree, Freud's repetition of Ernst's repetition. In fact, Derrida's interpretation of the scene often appear fanciful, speculative, or exorbitant, l but it is in this exorbitance that the theory of inter- pretation .!!!. autobiography is played out. We shall return to this question later. By analyzing Freud's report of Ernst's game, Derrida seeks to uncover "le reste inanalyse d'un inconscient" that has been passed on to Freud's successors, who have received the legacy without investiga- ting the conditions and limits of a science based on a self-analysis. He locates the evidence of this in the scene of writing that mimes and repeats the game it describes. It is in Freud I s identifica- tion with his grandson that Beyond turns back upon itself: since he and Erns t are playing the same game, any comment about the child or the game can also be taken as a statement about himself. Furthermore, since Freud's writing is an of the repetition compulsion that is posited in Beyond, whatever conclusions Freud draws about the relation of this compulsion to the pleasure principle or the death drive refer to his writing as well. In the description of Ernst's games, Freud describes himself and his writing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246 The Fort/Da Games. The game with the spool as object is the second in a series of games. In the first scene that Freud observes, Ernst throws "any small objects he could get hold of" (XVIII, 14) away from him, under the bed or into a corner, and it is the family's task to collect his toys. Freud and Ernst I s mother Sophie watch this game and take part in it, not only by bringing the child's toys back to him, but by interpreting the "long-drawn-out 10 -0_0-0 '11 as the German word fort (Ugone"). In the second game, then, Ernst holds his toy spool by a string, throws it behind the curtain or skirt of his bed and pulls it back to him, uttering in turn "0-0-0-0" is correct; he also believes that this is the "complete game," that the first observation did not include the denouement and that "there is no doubt that the greater pleasure was attached to the second act" (XV-III, 15). Freud concludes that the child, who did not cry during his mother's periodic absences, was compensating himself for his good behavior, by representing his mother's departures and returns in a game, and thus mastering them. In a footnote appended immediately to this observation, Freud add::; a third instance of the !ll game. This time, there is no toy or object involved, only the child himself. When the mother returns after several hours, Ernst announces "bebi 0-0-0-0" and it is soon discovered that he "had found a method of making himself disappear" (XVIII, 15n) by crouching beneath a full-length mirror in which he had his reflection. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247 On the next page, Freud adds yet another supplementary observation, this one taking place a year later. At this time, the child was in the habit of "punishing" his toys by throwing them. to the ground and exclaiming: "Go to the front!" He had heard. that his absent father was I at the front,' and was fat: from regretting his absence; on the contrary, he made it quite clear that he had. no desire to be disturbed in bis sale possession of his mother (XVIII, 16). In this case, then, the game is not aimed at mastering an tmde- sirable absence but at prolonging a desirable one. Freud adds that even Ernst's game with the spool may have involved an impulse of revenge, a way of saying to the mother: "All right then, go away! I don't need you. I'm sending you away myself" (XVIII, 16). In a final footnote, Freud reports the fifth episode, where the child no longer plays .f!?n., but experiences the definitive loss of his mother: When this child was five and three-qW:Lrters, his mother died. Now that she was really 'gone' ('0-0-0'), the little boy showed no signs of grief. It is true that in the interval a second child had been born and had roused him to violent jealousy (XVIII, l6n). These, tben, are the fort!e!!) games that Ernst plays and that Freud observes and reports. In the second chapter of Beyond and, in fact, throughout the essay, they are supplemented by Freud's game: on four separate occasions during the development of the chapter, he avoids taking the step beyond the pleasure principle, sends his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248 thesis fort. We have already seen the first instance: he interrupts the discussion of war neuroses, breaks off, and turns to the question of child's play. But having reported Ernst's games, he explains that "no certain decision can be reached from the analysis of a single case like this" (XVIII, 16). This statement is followed by two tentative interpretations: the child is attempting to master an experience to which he submitted passively by assuming an active role !. he is sending his toys away in an act of revenge against the mother. But once more and for the third time, Freud finds himself unable to advance and is forced to conclude: "Nor shall we be helped in our hesitation between these two views by further considering children's play" (XVIII, 16). There follows a discussion of artistic imitation and a call for a study of aesthetics from an economic point of view. But, since he has asserted the dominance of the pleasure principle even in the case of the work of art, Freud must conclude that such avenues of study would be 1I0f no use for ~ purposes, since they presuppose the exis- tence and dominance of the pleasure principle; they give no evidence of the operation of tendencies beyond the pleasure principle" (XVIII, 17). Having pointed out these four interruptions or ~ in Freud's essay, Derrida notes: Nous n'avons pas avance d'un pas, seulement des pas pour rien dans 1a voie de.la recherche manifeste. Ca se repete sur place. Et pourtant, dans ce pietinement, la repetition insiste et si ces repetitions determinees, ces contenus, especes, exemples de repetition ne suffisent pas a detr6ner Ie PP, du mains 1a forme repetitive, 1a reproduction du repetitif, la reproductivite m ~ m aura-t-elle commence a travailler sans rien dire, sans rien dire d'autre qu'elle-meme se taisant, un peu comme a la derniere page Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 est dit que les pulsions de mort ne disent rlen (CP, 317). The last page of Beyond says not only that the death drive does its work silently or unobtrusively (unaufillig) but that "the pleasure principle seems actually to serve the death instincts" (XVIII, 63). 249 Thus, even if Freud does not succeed, at the level of the demonstration, in positing a drive beyond the pleasure principle, even if his repeated and repetitive examples do Dot argue conclusively for a compulsion to repeat, the repetitive, inconclusive, unobtrusive form of the essay functions in precisely the same way as the death drive it posits. '!he repetitions in the chapter silently confirm what Freud cannot quite bring himself to say. Dernda liuks this structure of a pleasure principle, a reality principle, and a death drive that seems to work silently from within the structure to the genealogical movement (continuation or extinction) of his family and of the family of psychoanalysis. That is, he associates the pleasure principle (PP) with the grandfather (pepe) and finds in FTeud's reaction to his daughter's (and later, to his younger grandson's) death an indication of a death drive that touches the psychoanalytic movement. The point of articulation between the structure of the pleasure principle and that of the psychoanalytic movement lies in the identification of Freud with Ernst in the f o r t ~ The Freud Family. Den-ida thus superimposes Freud's reaction to the death of his daughter onto Ernst's response to the periodic absences I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250 of his mother in so doing, opens the text to a reading that records certain events in the psychoanalytic movement. The story of Ernst as Freud tells it exhibits all the features of a classic "family romance": Ernst yearns for exclusive possession of his mother; he is jealous of his father and of his younger brother. Nevertheless, he is capable of a IIgreat cultural achievement --the instinctual renunciation (that is, the renunciation of instinctual satisfaction) It which consists of "allowing his mother to go away without protesting" (XVIII, 15). He achieves this by representing his mother's departure in a game. Sophie, of course, provides the intermediate link between Freud and Ernst: she is the one whose absence they both regret and whose presence they both desire. They are not, for this reason rivals: the rivals (son-in-law! father and grandson/ younger brother) are excluded from the scene. Thus, the generation that intervenes between Freud and his grandson allows the identification to take place; Sophie serves as a kind of partition through which the reversal of roles can occur. Thus, Derrida writes, "un supplement de generation y trouve toujours a employer au dep10yer son desirll (CP, 321). But what is the nature of Freud's desire? When Sophie dies, he refers repeatedly in his letters to a "blessure irreparable offense narcissique" (CP, 350). This not only echoes Ernst's feelings toward his mother I s absence (at least as Freud interprets them). it also repeats one of the central theoretical questions of Beyond. For one of the enigmas about analYSis is that the patient compulsively repeats a life experience that cannot have produced pleasure: namely, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251 the severe blow to narcissism that results W1w.D the child attempts to investigate the mystery of sexuality. Freud explains that: the childts sexual researches, on which limits are imposed by his physical development, lead to no satisfactory conclusion The tie of affection, which binds the child as a rule to the parent of the opposite sex, succumbs to disappointment, to a vain expectation of satisfaction or to jealousy over the birth of a new baby --unmistakable proof of the infidelity of the object of the child's affections. His own attempt to make a baby, carried out with tragic seriousness, fails shamefully (XVIII, 21). The birth of Ernst's younger brother, then, brings about a separation from the mother, inflicts a narcissistic scar and a sense of inferiority: This accounts for Ernst's indifference following the death of his mother: in effect, the work of mourning, the separation from the mother, had already taken place. A remnant of this first disappointment or failure survives into adulthood. Freud writes that his neurotic patients characteristically complain, "I can't accomplish anything; I can't succeed in anything," as if they were constantly reliving that first narcissistic wound. And this sense of inferiority, grounded in the child's failed attempts to understand sexuality, also applies to Freud and links him to his grandson Ernst. Both perform a work of mourning (Ernst in the f o r t ~ game, Freud in Beyond). Freud also finds himself unable to accomplish anything, unable to advance in his "researches" concerning the nature of pleasure. He too is unable to bear a "child," a thesis that is not aborted. And of course, the pain Freud feels at the loss of his daughter is that of a break in the lineage. He writes to his friend Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252 Binswanger immediately after Sophie's death: "Nous n I avens pas surmonte cette monstruosite: que des enfants puissent mourir avant les parents" (quoted in CP, 352). It is as if. in dying, Sophie had failed to provide a sufficient "return" (in the form of children) on Freud' 9 investment in a lineage; the man to whom he entrusted his daughter would have failed to make good on the investment. As we saw in our discussion of ''Mourning and Melancholia," the goal of mourning is to separate oneself from the lost object, to dis- tance oneself from the lost object, to distance oneself from that absence in order to avoid death oneself. When Ernst vengefully sends his mother away ("All right then, go away! I don't need you"), he is performing a work of this kind. And Freud, too, sends his daughter away: Une fois fort. Sophie peut bien rester au elle est. C'est 'uneperte qu'il faut oubl1er' (a Jones Ie 8 fevrier). Elle est morte 'counne si e11e n'avait jamais existe' (Ie 27 janvier. a Pfister. moins d'une semaine apres 1a mort de Sophie) (CP. 350). Derrida also points to the d:lvision of Beyond into chapters. which recalls both the seven-day period of mourning in the Jewish tradition (CP, 129) and the seven days that passed between the first news of Sophie's illness and her death (CP. 350-51). If Freud seems to accomplish his work of mourning with relative ease, continuing to write and declaring "la seance continue" after Sophie's death, it is because he, like Ernst, has already suffered an earlier separation --seven years before, when he married his daughter Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253 to another man. Ernst and his grandfather are also joined in their ambivalence toward Sophie's husband. For Ernst, the father interferes with his desire for "exclusive possession" of the mother. For Freud, the son-in-law represents the other family name, the loss of his proper name that the lineage through the daughter brings about. After Sophie's death, lila lutte pour la I possession exclusive' de la file [sic] (mere) morte fait rage de tous cates" (CP, 351). Unable to attend his daughter I S funeral and cremation, Freud arranges for his two sons and daughter to be there. "Le gendre .. ne sera pas reste seul avec la morte. Freud est represente par les siens, malgre la suspension du train, par une autre fille et deux fils, porteurs du nom ll (CP, 352). Freud cannot attend the funeral because there are no trains running at the time of his daughter's death. This provides yet another link with the anecdote. Ernst expresses his desire for his father to stay away from his mother by throwing down his toys, by sending them lito the front. II But Freud imagines another game. In reporting the scene, he says that Ernst might have found another use for his spool: "It never occurred to him to pull it along the floor behind him, for instance, and play at its being a carriage (XVIII, 15). Derrida cOIlDllents: II a I' air de s' etonner, y mettant un regret certain, que Ie brave enfant n'ait jamais eu l'idee du tratner la bobine derriere lui et de jouer a la voiture: au wagon plutot au train. Clest cOIlDlle si lIon pouvait parler (wagen encore) que Ie speculateur (dont Ie gofit inverse, disons la phobie pour Ie chemin de fer, Eisenbahn, est assez connu pour nous mettre sur la voie) aurait joue, lui, au petit train (CP, 335). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254 If Freud has a phobia about trains. it 1s natural that he should try to mast.er it in a game (or in a self-analysis, as was in fact the case)3 just as Ernst masters his lOOther's absence. Furthermore, Freud must passively submit to the trains that remain at a distance and. that keep him. from traveling to his daughter I s funeral: all the more reason to control the toy train, to hold the string that keeps the trai.n at a distance, or to wish that bis grandson would do it for him. The last link of identification between Ernst and. Freud is the feeling of jealousy towards a younger brother, Ernst's brother Heinerle, who stands in tbe same relation to Ernst as Freud's younger brother Julius to him. As it happens, both younger brothers die at an early age. The death of Julius, corresponding to Freud's wish, "suBeita en lui un sentiment de culpabiU.t, tendance qui ue l'abandonna jamais" (Jones, quoted i'D. CP, 356). When Heiner1e dies, following a tonsillec- tomy that coincides with Freud's first operation for the throat cancer that would eventually kill him, Freud becomes profoundly depressed. He considered Heiner1e the most intelligent chUd he had ever known and the grandson who stood for all fUiation. Thus, he expe:-iences the death of Heinerle as his own death, the extinction of his lineage. But his identification with Ernst would lead him to this death, the death of the rival. This desire would, in turn, elicit a feeling of guilt when it is realized. Derrida writes: S1 la culpabi1ite se rapporte sur celui dont 11 vecut 1& mort comme sa propre mort, a savoir celle de l' autre, du petit fdire d'Ernst co. petit frire, Julius, on tient quelques fils (seulement) dans le 1acet d'identification endeuilli!es, ja10uses et Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. coupables, infiniment, qui prend la speculation au piege (CP, 357). 255 In other words, Freud experiences another's death as his OHll j and his own death as that of another (a rival) j in these multiple identifica- tions, Freud's relation to his lineage (and to himself) can only be highly ambivalent. To put it simply: Freud both desires and fears a lineage, both desires and fears his own death, desires to die his own death when, in fact, that death is always experienced as another's. It is no wonder that the essay Beyond stalls or becomes paralyzed just when it is about to posit a death drive: Freud's complex feelings of guilt, rivalry. and identification toward his own descendants make it impossible for him to advance. And Derrida underlines another example of the limits of a science based on a self-analysis: less complex than the structure of identification, it too involves Julius and takes the form of a simple denegation. Having written Fliess in 1897 confessing his intense jealousy toward his brother I' on a peine a comprendre que Freud ait e r i t ~ vingt ans plus tard, que lorsque 'l'enfant n'a que quinze mois a l'epoque de la naissance d'un cadet, 11 lui est a peu pres impossible d'etre jaloux'" (Jones, quoted in CP, 356-57). The Family Romance of Psychoanalysis. A number of the incidents recorded or alluded to in the second chapter of Beyond, incidents relating to Freud's family, have a correlative in the genealogy of the psychoanalytic movement and thus allow for an interpretation of wider scope concerning Freud's grief over his daughter, his grandson, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256 and the Trauerarbe1t in the form of a ~ M of the essay. For example, Anton von Freund, one of the or1.ginal members of the psycho- analytic Committee, died only a few days before Sophie. The ring that Freud had given him, wb1.ch should have been passed on to von Freund's successor, was instead claimed by his widow. Thus, just as Sophie interrupts the genealogy of the proper name, von Freund's widow establishes a break in the "alliance de Freud." Reinerle I S death in 1923 is also associated in time with further breaks in the psychoanalytic movement; in fact, Ernest Jones titles his account of the years 1921-26, ''Disunion. II These fissut'es in the movement eventually lead to the dissolution of the Committee. Less than a year after Reinerle's death, Freud writes to Ferencd: JI ai survecu au Comite qui aurait do' @tre mon successeur. Peut-itre survivrai-je a l' Association internationale. 11 est a esperer que la psychanalyse me survivra. Mais tout ceci constitue une sombre fin pour la vie d' un homme (quoted in CP, 355). A year and a half later, Freud explains to Marie Bonaparte that, since the death of his young grandson, he feels unable to become attached to anyone; only the old attachments are maintained (CP, 355). This regress10n to an earlier state, the 1ncapacity to move forward is characteristic of the death drive: in this instance, it is also associated with the psychoanalytic movement or rather I with an arrest of that movement, Freud I s feeling that he has survived his own heirs and his inability to form a new alliance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257 In more general terms, the question of the proper name and its relation to Freud's genealogy is pertinent to the history of the psychoanalytic movement as well, since both the science and the family are associated with the nal!le "Freud." This pOints to the peculiar position of women within this movement, to the question of female sexuality and of female psychoanalysts within this science of the proper name. The question of the proper name is also that of the legitimacy of Freud's heirs, their right to bear his name, and the testament that the name carries with it. Derrida follows the genealogical line that leads from Freud to the French branch of psychoanalysis by focusing on Marie Bonaparte. She ls, at the time of Heinerle's death, Freud's confidante, part of the old alliance; it is to Bonaparte that Freud writes of his depression and indifference. Derrida explains: 8i j'insiste sur l'aveu a Marie Bonaparte, c'est pour aire suivre. Par Ie acteur de 1a verite jusqu'a la scene de fami1Ie du c6te de la branche frant;aise, au moment ou on croit decacheter un testament . Un des elements du drama: plusieurs familles portent Ie meme nom sans toujours Ie savoir. Et il ya d'autres noms dans 1a meme famille. (J' interromps iei c-.-- developpement:-Si on veut bien en lire la consequence, jusqu'a son appendice dans Le Facteur de la Verite, on y perceVTa peut-etre une contribution a tel de!c-ryptage encore a venir du mouvement analyUque franc;ais.) (CP, 355) This passage, which links "Specu1er" to "Le Facteur de 1a Verite," Freud's generation to Lacan's (and Derrida's), treats the psychoanalytic heritage as a problem involving the proper name, its transmission, and of women's relation to that game. It concerns a certain male prejudice passed on from father to son, Freud to Lacan, that not only distorts Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 258 the theory of psychoanalysis but actually determines the structure of the heritage and the institution. It concerns, that is. the "phal1o- centrism" of Freud's theory. The Heritage of Phallocentrism. In "Le Facteur de la Verite," Derrida argues' that Lacan, in his reading of Poe as an illustration of his own theory of language has, like Freud, adopted a specifically male point of view even while claiming to occupy a privileged position outside or beyond any interested viewpoint. This leads Lacan: first, to practice a "mauvais formalisme" in reading Poe's story and to Qver- look the interested positions of the narrators in the story they are telling; second, to ignore or deny knowledge of Marie Bonaparte's psychobiographical reading of the same short story even while borrowing heavily from her; and third, to thereby deny Marie- Bonaparte's prior claim to Freud's legacy and to claim for himself the direct and legitimate lineage with Freud, and the access to psychoanalytic truth. To follow Derrida' s critique more closely: he claims that Lacan, like Freud, views female sexuality as simply lack, female genitals as castration. Lacan would view woman as "figure de la castration et de la verite" (CP I 469). Le lien de la Feminite et de la Verite . est selon Lacan 1 'ultime signifie de la 'Lettre Volee' Lacan insiste surtout sur ce lien et sur ce sens. II y met a la Femme ou a la Feminite une majuscule qu'il reserve ailleurs, ,tres souvent, a la Verite (CP, 470). And, writes Derr1da, this determination of truth as (women's) castration, allows Lacan to grant both truth and the phallus a central, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. privileged position in his discourse: La c.astration-verite, c'est ce qui se contracte pour faire revenir Ie phallus, Ie signifiant, la lettre au Ie fetiche en leur oikas, en leur demeure fsmilie-re, en leur lieu propre. EnCe sens la castration-verite est Ie contraire du morcellement, son antidote meme: ce qui y manque a sa place a sa place fixe, centrale, soustraite a toute substitution. Quelque chose manque a sa place, mais Ie manque n' y manque jamais. Le phallus, grace a la castration, reate toujours a sa place (CP' 469). 259 Determining truth as absence rather than presence does not displace the fundamental system of a privileged, transcendental term that organizes and centers discourse. Truth and the phallus still have a "lieu propre" even if it is a gap always to be filled. The link between truth, castration, and woman depends, however, on a certain point of view and on a certain interpretation: those of the male child who perceives the female genitals not as a sexual difference but as a lack, a lost penis. Auparavant, en tout cas, il a bien ete Iii et par la suite il a ete enleve. Le manque de penis est con/iu corome Ie resultat d'une castration Au stade [ ] de l' organisation genitale infantile, 11 y a bien un masculin, mais pas de feminio; l'oppositioo s'enonce aiosi: ~ e o i t l masculin ou chatre" (Freud, quoted in CP, S090., ellipses in brackets are Derrida 's). It has been shown that Freud's entire theory of sexuality (the struc- ture of the Oedipal complex aod the symmetry between the male castration complex and the female penis envy depends on his adopting the male child's point of view. 4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Derrida writes that Ie point de vue de I' homme n I est pas Ie meme que celui de la femme, donnant ainsi ~ penser que la Feminite voilee/devoilee/chatree nlest figure de la Verite que pour 1 'homme. Celui-ci ne aerait maitre de la verite que de ce point de vue (CP, 487). It is not simply that Lacan has inherited unquestioningly the male prejudices of Freud, has perpetuated Freud's blindness in equating women and castration, in seeing women as merely castrated men; the 260 critique is of greater scope. In a lengthy footnote, Derrida explains that it might be possible to describe the phallocentrism of children's sexual lives and of society in general without nece'ssarily ascribing to that view, but that " cette hypothese rencontre ... une limite tres strictement determinable." La description est 'partie prenante' quand elle induit une pratique, une ethique et une institution, donc une politique assurant 1a tradition de sa verite. . .. .. Le propos ethico- institutionne1 est diklare par Lacan: Ie motif de l' authenticite, de la parole pleine, de 1a foi juree et de la I convention signifiante I Ie montrait assez. II se regIe systematiquement sur une doctrine phallogocentrique du signifiant (CP, 509n.) .. In other words, when Lacan identifies women-as-castration with ~ that view of sexuality becomes the paradigm for his position as "maitre de verite"; it allows him a privileged position from which to speak and consolidates the power he wields within the institution of psychoanalysis. That the female child might have a different point of view with regard to the female genitals is an insight that Derrida finds in Marie Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261 Bonaparte's reaJing of "The Purloined Letter." He notes, however, that Bonaparte does not escape entirely from this male point of view and that she "sly reporte avec reconnaissance a la lettre de certains eclaircissements que Freud lui confia" (CP, 4870.). In fact, she and Lacan reach virtually the same conclusion about the meaning of Poe I s story: the letter that the inspector Dupin finds hanging in a letter- holder between the "cheeks" (iambages) of the fireplace represents the "rephallization ll of the mother. We shall return later to Bonaparte IS position as a woman psychoanalyst and her ambiguous relation to Freud. For the moment, however, we need to examine Lacan's ambivalent relation to this female heir to Freud. Derrida points _ to evidence that Lacan had read Bonaparte's interpretation even though he does not acknowledge it explicitly. Bonaparte had noted an error in Baudelaire's translation of Poe: the translator places the letter-holder above the mantel-piece whereas in the original English, it rests beneath the mantel, between the cheeks of the fireplace. In an apparent allusion to Bonaparte's correction, Lacan writes: La question de savoir s'il Ie saisit sur 1e manteau, comme Baudelaire le traduit, Oll sous le manteau de 1a cheminee comme Ie porte 1e texte original, peut etre abandonnee sans dommage aux inferences de la cuisine. lS [lei, done, une note de Lacan: '15. Et meme de la cuisiniere"] (quoted in CP, 474, Derrida' s brackets). Derrida comments: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sans dommage? Le deg!t se1:'aie au contraire irreparable, it l'intEr1eur m@.me du SSm:1naire: Bur Ie manteau de 1a chemiuee 18 lettre n' aurait pu Atre'entre les jambages de 1a cheminee, I I entre les jambes de sa cheminee. I L' enjeu est done de taille, meme 81 ott laissait de e6te 1a nervos1te meprisante 11 1 'endro1t d'une psyc:hanal}'Ste et de son legs. Pourquoi releguer 1a question a 1a cuisine, comme a 1a dpenciance, et celle qui y repond au rang de 1a cuis1niere? (CPt 474-75). 262 In relegating Bonaparte to the kitchen, Lacan denies her claim to Freud I s legacy and attempts to make himself sole and leg! timate heir. The play on the English word "leg, II within the context of the inter- pretation of Poe's story about women I s castration, also suggests that Lacan r s uneasiness has to do with the fact that Bonaparte is a woman. The specter of a woman psychoanalyse might endanger the male prejudices (woman as figure of truth-as-castration) upon which Lacan builds his system. Derrida. points to Lacan' s repeated efforts to claim. for himself the entire Freudian legacy and especially, his repeated attacks on Bonaparte qui s'est cru(e) en France, pendant longtemps, 1e di!positaire 1e plus autorise, 1a legata1re de l' autorlti! de Freud, entretenant avec lui tme correspondance, des liens personnels de confidence, 1e representant mime dans notre pays comme une sorte de ministre dont l' auteur du Sem1naire conna1t a la fois 1a trahison et l' aveuglement (CP, 484). In a sense, Bonaparte is the mother that tacan refuses to recognize, the female heir in a genealogy that to have passed from father to son. She is that break in the genealogy that '1s represented in the daughter I S loss of the family name. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263 The FortlDa Game as a Scene of Derrida's analysis of how a blind spot (in this case, Freud's prejudice concerning female sexuality) can be passed from one generation to the next and can become part of the very structure of an institution underlines the necessity of returning to Freud's texts, Dot in order to reestablish an orthodoxy, but to examine the condition for the science in the first place. It underlines, then, the importance of analyzing the "reste inanalyse d'un inconscient" in Freud's writings. Derrida takes on this task in his interpretation of the second chapter of Beyond, that is, in one of the texts and one of the moments privileged by Lacan. The scene, of course, is also a scene of interpretation: the grandfather and the mother of a child interpret -his game and the sounds that he utters. The mother stands silently beside her father, assenting to and guaranteeing what he says. Derrida writes: II y a une fille muette. Plus qu'une autre, qui aura use du credit paternel dans un abondant discours d'heritage, el1e aura peut-etre dit voila pourquoi votre pere a la parole. Non seulement man pere, mais votre pere. C'est Sophie (CP, 327). That other daughter, whether one takes that to be Anna Freud or Marie Bonaparte, inherits, with the discourse, the phallocentric system. Thus, although Bonaparte is able to point to the specifically male point of view of Poe's Dupin, she ends up adopting it in her own interpretation, even paying homage to Freud's cormnents on the subject. In appearance, Sophie's position is not very different from Bonaparte's: she, too, shares Freud's point of view, agrees with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his interpretation. But Derrirla locates her contribution in her silence; in keeping silent, Sophie has said how it is possible for 264 her father and for the father of psychoanalysis to speak. It is as if a certain silence about women and v n ~ on the part of women, provided the condition for Freud's discourse on truth. We have already suggested why this might be the case: the identification of women with truth-as- castration, which effaces the female point of view on sexuality, grounds Freud's discourse in a privileged, transcendental term, the phallus. Sophie, who represents Freud's silence about women, thus reveals the very condition for his discourse. Sophie I s silence in this family scene also suggests that she is the death drive of the family or that women are the death drive in the psychoanalytic movement. For, as we recall, it is the death drive that works in silence, silently working against the pleasure principle (PP). A number of indications in "Speculer" point to this interpretation. Throughout Beyond, Freud searches for a drive that is beyond the pleasure principle or independent of it: but Derrida aims to show that this drive is already inscribed within the structure of the pleasure principle. Pointing out that there is no opposition between the pleasure principle and the reality principle since "Ie principe de realite n'impose aucune inhibition definitive, aucun renoncement au plaisir, seulement un detour pour differer la jouissance, Ie relais d'une differance" (CP, 301), Derrida adds: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mais la structure de differance peut alors ouvrir a une alter1tll! plus irreductible encore que celIe qu'on prete a 1 'opposition. Parce que Ie principe de plaisir ne passe de contrat qu'avec lui-meme et ne rencontre en somme aucune opposition, 11 dechaine en lui l'autre abeolu (cp, 302). --- That "absolute other" is the death drive and it is at work in the difference between the pleasure principle and the reality principle, in the detour that the pleasure principle submits to in order to finally attain pleasure. For the structure of the detour implies that one can always not arrive, that the drive can be definitively 265 derouted, can die en route, and that the pleasure principle will never return to itself. Derrida explicitly compares this structure to that of the psycho- analytic movement that Freud initiates: [C'est] comme s1 [1e PP] produisait un socius, mettait en 'mouvement' une institution en signant un contrat avec la 'discipline,' avec Ie sous-maltre ou Ie contre- maitre qui pourtant ne fait que Ie representer. Faux 'contrat, pure speculation, simulacre d'engagement qui ne lie Ie seigneur quia lui-meme, a. sa propre modifi- cation, a. lui-meme II s'ecrit, il s'envoie: mais si 1a longueur du detour n'est plus maitrisable, et plutat que la longueur sa structure, alors Ie retour a soi n'est jamais assure (CP, 301-02). As we saw in "On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement," Freud assumes that, since he initiated the psychoanalytic movement, he should remain the ultimate judge of its orthodoxy; the contract should always return to him. But Derrida argues that nothing is less assured. One finds the same general structure within the Freud family, between the grandfather (PP), his male heir (the PR or Ernst's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266 father, Freud's son-in-law), and the detour in this male genealogy, the daughter Sophie. It is through this lineage that Freud hopes to return to himself, in the form of a grandson identical to him. But Sophie dies, as does her son, and with them, it appears, Freud's hope for a lineage. Science of the Proper Name. Derrida poses the problem of the interrupted lineage as a question of the proper name. Sophie is the daughter IIqui ne perpetue la race qu'en risquant Ie Dom" (CP, 322) and, Derrida adds: (je VOllS 1a1sse suivre ce facteur jusqu'a toutes celles dont 11 est difficile de savoir s1 elles ont garde Ie mouvement sans Ie nom au perdu Ie mouvement pour garder,' pour avair garde, Ie nom ) (CP, 322-23) It is once more the question of female heirs (psychoanalysts) and their relation to Freud. We can again distinguish between two sorts of daughters: those who accept Freud's name, his legacy, his discourse, and the male point of view that goes with them; and those who continue the "movement" (which depends on a detour and on difference) that extends beyond the "pp" Freud or that returns to the conditions that make possible Freud's lineage. Quoting Freud's remark to Havelock Ellis that his name will be forgotten in a few generations but that his discoveries will survive, Derrida writes: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ce Dom de Freud, 1 'institution classique d'une science aurait dil pouvoir s'en passer. Du moins faire de son cubl! la condition et la preuve de sa transmission, de son propre hritage. C' est ce que Freud croyait au affectait de crolre Le grand speculateur sly dit en somme pret a payer la science de son propre nom, a. payer de son nom la prime d'assurance (CP, 352-53). Freud stands to gain a great deal from the "speculation" with his 267 proper name. For the loss of the name would insure that psychoanalysis had become an ideal object: Freud's discoveries would live on, would retain their identity and their identity ~ across time. But that speculation involves a risk: "C'est comme s'i1 ne savait pas, deja, qu'en payant la science de son propre nom, clest aussi la science de son propre nom qulil paie" (CP, 353). Once the science is detached from its origin, from Freud's name, it may become associated with other names, appropriated by other psychoanalysts, and altered in the process. Alluding to his own project of uncovering the conditions for Freud. I s founding of psychoanalysis, Derrida explains: "Mais la science de son propre nom. c'est aussi ce qui reste a faire. comme Ie retour necessaire sur l'origine et la condition d'une telle science" (CP. 353). That is precisely what Freud tries to avoid when he offers to give up the name that would link psychoanalysis to an individual. His speculation aura consiste --peut-etre-- a pretendre payer d'avance, auss! cher qu'il faudra. les charges dlun tel retour it l'envoyeur . II doit y avo!r eu t.me maniere de speculer sur la ruine de son nom (nouvelle vie, nouvel:1e science) qui garde ce qu' elle perd" (CP, 353). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268 The forgetting of Freud's proper name would have made it possible for Freud to avoid, or to control, the investigation into the status of psychoanalysis in relation to him. Fart/Da as Self-Analysis. Freud, of course, cannot insure that the message he sends to himself will not be intercepted by the other names within his family, whose interest may lie in the envelope or material support of the letter rather than in its message. The letter can always be derou"ted and Freud I s secrets uncovered. Among the daughters and sons-in-law who are both within and outside the family is Derrida, who finds in the f o r t ~ scene a self-analysis. Freud's as well as Ernst's. It is clear that Ernst's game is therapeutic: the child copes with his mother's absences by representing-them in a game, that is, by manipulating signs (both the spool that represents the absent mother and the "0-0-0-0" that signifies the absence of the spool) in a kind of "talking cure." Nevertheless, the analysis never comes to term: it is compulsively repeated, apparently independent of the pleasure principle. The grandfather, looking on, repeats Ernst t s game in the writing of Beyond. He finds in the scene played out before him a figure for one of the conflicts that is troubling him: his relation to the psychoanalytic movement, which he initiates, founding a lineage, but always in the hope that it will return to him. The indecisiveness of Beyond, then, represents Freud I s attempt to keep his science out of someone else I s hands, to make sure that the theses he puts forward never quite get out of hand but always return to him. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269 In this double self-analysis, it is important to note that Freud is not quite satisfied with the way Ernst plays his game, that he seems to regret that the child did not put the spool on the floor behind him and play at its being a train. The game that Freud would have liked to play differs from the f o r t ~ game in several respects. First, he would deny himself the "supplement du plaisir" that is attached to the second part of the game, to the return of the spool. "lIs' en prive pour a'en epargner la peine au Ie risque du pari" (CP, 335). Playing at train is a game without risks, since the object stays safely on the ground, does not disappear but remains "a merne distance, 1a longueur du fi1 restant invariable ll ; if it moves at all, it is "au meme rythme que soi" (CP, 336). Second, when Ernst plays his game, he flings the spool over the rim of the bed where it disappears behind the curtain or skirt of his cot. Pulling the object behind one would thus be an effort to line pas mettre en jeu Ie lit desire!! (CP, 336). The bed represents not only sexual desire (Ernst's Oedipal desire), but also the desire for offspring, a lineage, and the psychoanalyst's couch. Freud wants to keep desire out of the game; if the game is a self-analysis, he does not want the self to disappear from view in its pursuit of desire. Freud wants to he able to keep himself in view, to not leave anything unanalyzed, to turn away from the desired object and remain firmly planted on the ground: Jauer au wagon, ce serait aussi bien 'tirer derriere soil 1 'objet investi, tenir la locomotive bien en main et ne voir la chose qu I en se retournant. On ne I' a pas devant soi. Le speculateur (l'analyste) est evidemment Ie Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270 premier analysant. L'analysant-locomotive pour qui la 10i de 1 'ecoute se 8ubstitue a celIe du regard (CP, 336-37). In this ideal self-analysis, the "patient!! should always be within hearing range, capable of being scrutinized and no hindrance to the development of an objective science. But, as Derrida points out, the self does disappear out of sight, behind the curtain. And what is the nature of the curtain behind which Freud sees himself disappear? "Le voile de ce 'jupon l est l'interet du lit et Ie fort:.!!! de toutes ces generations. Je ne me risquerai pas a. dire: clest Sophie" (CP, 337). Once again. women appear as the blind spot_ of Freud's self-analysis, and the moment of risk in the game: the spool can always get caught in the curtain; it can always not return to Freud's hand. Once out of sight, Freud cannot guarantee its return. The Debt to Philosophy. Until now, we have dealt with only one side of the genealogyof psychoanalysis: Freud's position of and the ambivalence he feels toward his descendants. That is perhaps as Freud would like it, that we forget his parentage and only see the genealogy that he initiates. In the fort!.! scene, which functions as his autobiography, he calls Ernst's activity "the first game played by a little boy . and invented by himself" (das erste selbstgeschaffene Spiel), and indeed, the game appears to be a solitary activity, a relation of self to self. Even so, it is important to remember that it articulates a relation between the child and his parents, both his father whom he wants to stay away, and his mother whom the father possesses. Ernst throws away the toys his parents have given him and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271 they, in turn, bring them. back. to him. Derrida sees this scene, and Freud I S relation to his philosophical ancestry. In the first chapter of Beyond, Derrida locates a number of "positions," irreconcilable with one another, that Freud adopts toward pbi.losophy: S1. on l'en crait, 11 faut done admettre 1. 'One 'incapacfte constitutionnel1e I a philosopher. L.angage occulte, voire obscurantiste: Clu'est-ce que c'eat, en termes psycbana- lytiques, une 'incapaciti! constitutionne11e' i philosopher? 2. One 'tendance' --na;anmoins- a la speculation. 3. Un evitement daibere de la philosophie, un rejet de la dette, de la genea.log1e ou de la descendance philosophiques. 4. Un non-evitement de ~ que Freud appeUe done 1a I speculation' et qui ne dolt litre, stricto sensu, 01. 1a phUosophie, n1 I' experillientation scientifique au c1in:l.que dans sea modes traditionnels (CP, 290). In these "conduites d'vitement ou de denegation" (CP, 290), we recog- nize the familiar movement of a !!:!ll:.!!!.. What is the danger, and the attraction, of philosophy that leads Freud to react in this way? Derrida describes the lure of philosophy in terms of a debt that must not be assumed, both because it is another's debt and because "l' autre s' est endette de fat;on insolvable (impardonnable) en emettant des simulacres de concepts" (CP, 284). In order to payoff a debt of meaning, philosophers have minted counterfeit money, words or concepts with no Ucontenu propre a 1a psychana1yse qui seule peut en garantir la valeur, l'usage, et l'echange" (CP, 284). For this reason, precisely because of the similarity between the counterfeit bills and .the "guaranteed" psychoanalytic concepts, Freud must avoid philosophy, refuse its legacy: "Qu'!l l'analyse ou non, Freud se soumet a un Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. imperati qui lui prescrit d' interrompre la chaine et de refuser l'heritage" (CP, 284). Derrlda traces Freud's attraction to and avoidance of philosophy in his use of two terms: "pleasure" and "speculation. II Beyond the Pleasure Principle begins with the words: In the theory -of psycho-analysis we have no hesitation in assuming (nehmen wir unbedenklich an) that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle" (XVIII, 7). Derrirla claims that this statement is IIni une confirmation, nl une 272 mise en question du bien-fonde" and that. it. will never become one or the other in the course of Beyond. Nevertheless, the term "unbedenk- Iich" seems to indicate that the assumption is trap assuree, trap autoritaire Quand Freud dit 'reg1e par 1e principe de plaisir c' est-ii-dire. . .,' i1 ajoute 'croyons-nous': cette croyance peut etre 1 'effet d'une credulite et ce soup/ion 1a suspend aussit6t" (CP, 294). The first sentence is at once overly self-assured and doubtful of its own self-assurance. One reason for this position (or non-position) is the nature of the object involved. For to say that one recognizes the authority of the "pleasure principle" is to assume, at least implicitly, what the term "pleasure" means. But Freud admits he does not know the nature of pleasure, its qualitative essence. "Clest a ce sujet que tout a l'heure, avec l'ironie requise, on feindra d'interroger le philosophe" (CP. 294). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273 In these first pages of Beyond, Freud claims that it is a matter of indifference to him how far, with this hypothesis of the pleasure principle, we have approached or adopted any particular, historically established, philosophical system since we have arrived at these speculative assumptions in an attempt to describe and to account for the facts of daily observation in our field of study. On the other hand, he adds, we would readily express our gratitude to any philosophical or psychological theory which was able to inform us of the meaning of the feelings of pleasure and unpleasure which act so imperatively on us (XVIII, 7). But finding no illumination for this "most obscure and inaccessible region of the mind, II Freud decides to adopt lithe least rigid hypothesis" possible (XVIII, 7). Thus, Freud laisse entendre ironiquement que meme quand 11 parle du plaisir --et quel philosophe aura manque?-- il ne sait pas et ne dit pas de quoi il parle ll (CP, 295). Rather than carefully defining his terms or depending on philosophical concepts, Freud leaves his speculation open and flexible. Of course, he relies to a certain extent on "I' experience commune" to make his use of the term "pleasure" comprehensible, but this is not conclusive since Freud is led to posit a kind of pleasure "qui se donne a l'experience commune, communement determinee, a 1a conscience au a 1a perception, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274 deplaisirll (cp. 295). The desires that have been repressed in the process of the ego's formation, should they achieve satisfaction, are experienced by the ego as unpleasure. So that the notion of pleasure, which appears "irreductiblement phenomenal II 1s complicated by tbe erlstence of the unconscious. Derrida claims that, as a result, cette speculation aeratt done etrangere a la philosopb:1e et a 18 metaphysique. Plus precisement, elle representera1t eela mime dont la phllo8ophie ou la metapbysique se gardent, consistent a se garder, entretenant avec e1le un rapport sans rapport, un rapport d' exclusion (cp, 296). If philosophy has always labored to uphold the law of non-contradiction and has awarded a central place to the pbenomenality of experience, tben Freud's "speculation" on pleasure, no matter how distant from. the "observations" he seeks to oppose to it, is in its essence non- philosophical. That is not to say, however, that it lies completely or simply philosophy: it is rather what philosophy guards against, tries to exclude without ever fully succeeding. It is, in other words, "l' autre de l' autre en I'habitant, en se laissant exclure sans cesser de Ie trava:L11er de la fa'$on 1a plus domestique" (CP, 296). Freud IS speculation represents the repressed of metaphysics, the forces that work silently from within it. Nor can Freud simply avoid the debt of philosophy, since the currency he uses (his words and concepts) is borrowed from or borrowed against the counterfeit bills of metaphysics. Derrida shows Freud's considerable debt to Plato J to Schopenhauer t and especially to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275 Nietzsche. In his f o r t / ~ with philosophy, Freud contracts and annuls the debt in the same gesture, repeats and displaces phUosophy, sounds its .a!!!., but nevertheless enters into the game. Thus, when Freud modifies his early remark that Ernst I s game was invented by him by saying, It is of course a matter of indifference from the point of view of judging the effective nature of the game whether the child invented it himself or took it over on some outside sugges tion (XVIII, 15). Derrida responds: Ah bon? Pourquoi? Naturel1ement indifferent? Tiens! Pourquoi? Qu'est-ce qu'une instigation dans ce cas? Par au passe-t-elle1 D' ou serait-elle venue? Que l'enfant 5e soit 'approprie' (zu eigen gemacht) Ie desir dlun autre au d'une autre, ou de deux autres conjoints . . cela serait 'naturellement indifferent'? . Toutes ces questions auront ete renvoyees eloignees. dissociees, voila l'incontestable (CP, 347). Freud I S feigned "indifference ll about the relation of his theories to philosophy, and his indifference regarding the source of the child's game both avoid the crucial question of the debt owed to past generations in the formation of one's own ideas. And it is that question that Derrida will take up in relation to his own philosophical heritage. Derrida's fort/da. There are numerous indications in "Speculer" that Derrida' s reading of Freud stands in the same relation to Beyond the Pleasure Principle as Freud's text stands to Ernst's f o r t / ~ game: it mimes the movement of that essay and repeats again Ernst's f o r t / ~ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276 this time as a disguised autobiography of Derrida. The title of the essay makes of Derrirla a third "speculator" and its structure confirms a close parallel between the two texts. My reading, with its concern for clear exposition, has minimized the fragmented, "non-positional" character of "Speculer." I have considerably simplified the shifting, multiple meanings and relations between the various elements; I have juxtaposed passages and drawn analogies (between Ernst and Freud, for example) that are not explicitly stated in the text. Further, I have truncated quotations from "Speculer" to make them appear simple assertions when, in fact, they are oddly suspended between assertion and denial. For example, when DerriC:1z draws a parallel between Ernst's bed and the analyst's couch, it takes this form.: "Car enfin ce lit au bord si necessaire et si indecidable, etait-ce un divan? Pas encore, ma1gre tout l'orphisme d'une speculation. Et pourtant" (CP, 338). The connection is made in the form of a question; it is then negated; and finally, it is affirmed. Again, the first time Derrida alludes to a relationship of identification between Freud and his grandson, he merely hints: (S1 Freud etait son petit-fils, 11 faudrait etre attentif a la repetition du cote du geste et non seulement du cote du fort Ida de la bobine, de l'objet. Mais ne brouillons pas"TeS cartes; qui a dit que Freud etait son propre petit-fils?) (CP, 316) Once more, the assertion is suspended, the question left unanswered. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277 One further example. At one point, Derrida suggests that, since the sounds "0 -0-0-0" and "a-a-a-8," the opposition a/a, cannot be translated into just any language and still retain their value, 11 Y a du nom propre Il-dessous, qu'on l'entende au sens figuri (tout s i g n l i ~ dont Ie slgnifiant ne peut pas varier ni se laisser traduire dans un autre signifiant sans perte de signification indu:l.t un effet de nom propre) ou au sens die 'propre' (CP, 333). Without elaborating any further on what importance this might have and on what connection there may be between this and his other comments on the question of the proper name, Derrida concludes: Je laisse ces hypotheses ouvertes, mais ce qui me para:tt assure, c'est la ni!:cessite de fonner des hypotheses sur Ie con1oint des interpretations de 0-0-0-0 .. voire ola (CP, 333) .5 Statements of this sort are numerous in "SpSculer": Derrida often suggests without affirming, or affirms and denies in the same breath, or leaves a question open, as if the important thing were not to come to a conclusion but rather to speculate on the possible conclusions one might draw. This speculation, of course, links "Speculer" with the text it is describing. A second link lies in the selectivity of the interpreters, Freud and Derrida, with regard to the object they describe. Derrida points out that when Freud reports his observation of the fortI.!!!, game, lice qui est rendu est d'abord crible, selectionne, act:l.vement del:l.mite" (CP, 320). t:lerrida compares Freud to a director who plays a part in his own play and who is thus in a hurry to put eve'ry-th:l.ng in order so that he Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 278 can prepare to appear on stage. "Cela ge traduit par un autoritarisme tranchant, des decisions qu'en n'explique pas, des paroles qu'on coupe, des questions auxquelles on ne repond pas" (CP, 329). Al.l of these attributes belong to "Speculer ll as well as to Beyond. Derrida writes, in effect: "Au-dela du principe du plaisir: j I en proposera! une lec- ture selective, criblante, discriminante" (CP, 279). Like Freud, Derrida actively selects the details he reports; he leaves questions unanswered, arbitrarily dismisses issues ("Laissons arbitrairement: de .,; .. 3te taus les problemes poses par n CP, 299); and, as we shall see, he too has a role in the play he is staging. We recall that in Beyond, the f o r t ~ episode interrupts the flow of the argument and delays Freud's discussion of the war neuroses until the next chapter. The episode at first appears as a mere detour, but, in fact, it is an example of the compulsion to repeat (the compulsion for autobiography) and thus anticipates the theoretical discussion. The first chapter of Derrida's "Speculer" has a similar structure. Der-rida analyzes Freud's desire for originality, his need to found a science that is truly his own, and his unrecognized debt to philosophy. This discussion will eventually lead to the question of the word and the concept, in particular, the difficulties that arise when Freud must use the terms "pleasure" and "speculation" even as he tries to strip them of their philosophical connotations. Derrida describes this relation between an etymological use and a more "subversive" one as that of translation "a l'interieur du 'meme' mot. II Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. La traduction devrait trouver son lieu, entre Ie concept philosophique dans sa determination dominante, apparente, legitime, accordee au consensus elementaire de la tradition philosophique, et celu! qui s'annonce iei (that is, in Freud's Beyond)" (CP, 296). Thus. the practice of using the same word to designate something 279 altogether different from its usual referent (Derrida elsewhere calls this practice "paleonymie") is a problem of translation. Now, in the middle of the discussion of Freud's debt to philosophy, Derrida interrupts the argument and inserts an autobiographical comment of his own. He has just asserted that "la reconnaissance de dette est annulee, OU, s1. vous preferez, deniee, confirmee, au centre de Au-dela . n (cp, 284) and he goes on to demonstrate this debt, in this case, to Hering, from whom Freud borrows the notion of a "dua1isme de 1a vie pulsionelle" (CP, 284). Two drives would continually be at work in the living organism: one drive would tend to assimilate, bring together, the other to disassimilate or break down. Thus, the first drive functions "en construisant (aufbauend), Ie second en de-truisant (abbauend)" (CP, 285). At this point in the argument, Derrida breaks off his discussion of Freud's debt to Hering, a discussion that will culminate in the question of translation, in order to insert a comment about two translations involving the word most associated with Derrida, "deconstruction. II Abbauen: c'est Ie mot que certains heideggeriens ant traduit par I deconstruire, f comme si tout etait dans tout et toujours devant la caravane (CP, 285). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280 This statement asserts Derrida's own desire for priority and for originality, denies his debt to Heidegger and suggests that "deconstruction ll like Freud's "psychoanalysisll is a term that ought to retain its proximity to the object it names. Derrida adds that the translation is not in itself illegitimate but that it makes it Fossible to manipulate "1' aprea-coup pour assimiler, precisement, et reconstruire ce qui se laisae mal assimiler" (CP, 285). Derrida is thus arguing that the drive to translate Heidegger's "abbauen" by Derrida's "deconstruction" is part of the assimilating drive that Hering and Freud posit, the drive to organize and appropriate that which, precisely, strives to avoid such assimila- tion. In the next sentence. Derrida introduces the notion of debt into this context: 11 est vra! auss! qu'en ce domaine 1a concurrence se fait d' autant plus apre qu' on peut toujours faire passer 1e d ~ j a l a . d'un mot pour l'anteriorite d'un concept dont on pretend alors endetter, voire ensemencer tout 1e mande (CP, 285). The French term "concurrence" means lIconcurrence" or "coincidence" (as in a coincidence of opposites or of events) and may. in this context. simply refer to the manufactured appearance of the same word (ltdeconstruire ll ) in the writings of both Heidegger and Derrida. Thus, the sentence 'Would mean: the fact that "deconstruire" occurs in Heidegger's texts could lead one to believe chat I, Derrida, have inherited it from him, that I am indebted to him for the concept, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281 that I am his heir. The word concurrence, however, also means "competitlon l1 or "rivalry." One might then translate the passage as: the rivalry between myself (Derrida) and Heidegger is made all the more bitter by the fact that one can always attribute to Heidegger a concept that is in fact, mine. Such a translation is by no means out of place: Derrida is claiming in this passage that Heidegger bas not invented deconstruction and that the translation of "abbauen" by "deconstruire lt reverses the genealogy, places Derrida in Heidegger's debt when in fact, Derrida is the rightful father of deconstruction. We begin to see that the issues of genalogy, rivalry, possession, etc. that Derrida analyzes in Beyond are by no means foreign to Derrida I s own position as the originator of deconstruction. The passage goes on to consider another instance of translation, this time, of Marx's German Ideology: Jusqu'lci I aufge1ost' etait fidelement traduit par 'reso1u' ou 'dissous.' Une traduction rikente de 1 'Ideologie allemande dit 'peuvent etre deconstruites' pour 'aufge1ost werden konnen,' sans autre forme de proces et sans la moindre explication (CP, 285). Once more, Derrida explains that the translation is not invalid in itself, but that, in the context of the passage, it tends to lIegarer 1e lecteur." The translated passage runs as follows: Elle [cette nouvelle conception materialiste de 1 'hlstoire] n'explique pas 1a praxis d'apres l'idee, elle explique la formation des idees d'apres 1a praxis materielle et parvient en consequence a ce resultat que ce n'est pas par la critique intellectuelle, par la reduction a la 'conscience de soil ou par 1a transmutation en 'revenants,' en 'fantomes,' en 'obsessions' etc., que 'Peuvent etre deconstruites Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (aufgelost werden kOnnen) toutes les formes et les productions de la conscience, mals seulement par la sub- version pratique. des rapports sociaux reels, d I au' sont sorties ces fariboles idealistes (quoted in CP, 285-86, Denida'e brackets). 282 Marx is criticizing the idealist position that claims that a critique of consciousness can by itself alter the forms of consciousness, without a corresponding change in economic structures. The use of the term "dconstruit, II which is associated with Derrida, suggests that Derrida's project is an idealism of this kind and that Marx provides a critique of Derrida in advance. On veut donner a croire que la 'deconstruction' est d' essence 'theoricienne,' volre theoriciste, ce par quoi on fait une . economie de la lecture (CP, 286) . Derrida suggests that any careful reading of his texts would reveal that his critique of philosophy does not limit itself to a deconstruc- tion of superstructures or to strictly "theoretical" matters, but that, despite the clever translation of Marx that accuses Derrida, Derridals critique also functions at the level of praxis. Nevertheless, the critique is a common one among Marxists 6 and rather than answering it here, Derrida goes on to criticize Marx: On aura remarque au passage, clest la destination ~ s s n t i l l 11 mes yeux de cette citation d'apparence philologique, Ie bon marche que Marx fait des 'fantomes' et des 'revenants.' Clest notre probleme (CP, 286). In effect, Marx speaks disparagingly of those philosophers who believe that, by way of intellectual critique, they can reduce all the belief Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283 systems or ideas into mere ghosts or specters. In "Speculer," Derrida treats these specters not as the result of such a reduction, not as the imperceptible, fuzzy remains of a belief system that has been deconstructed, but as a haunting presence that continues to be at work even in the "demythified" philosopher. If, as Marx claims, idealist philosophers reduce the products of the mind to "mere ghosts 9 " believing that they thereby achieve a transfonnation of consciousness, then Derrida is not an idealist, since he analyzes the persistence of such ghosts even after they are believed to have been BurmoWlted by the intellect. And yet, as he analyzes this persistence, Derrida also illustrates it, by expressing his own desire to cling to "deconstruc- tion" as his word, to keep it in his exclusive possession, to deny a debt and an ancestry. 7 In the next paragraph, Derrida alludes to a self-critique of deconstruction: 5i maintenant on traduisait abbauen par 'deconstruire' dans Au-dela. , on entreverrait peut-!tre un lieu entre ce qui s'engage Is sous la forme d'une ecriture athetique et ce qui m'a jusqu'ici interesse au titre de 1a deconstruction (CP, 286). In Beyond, Freud distinguishes two drives: the drive to construct and the drive- to "deconstruct." Derrida applies this drive to writing, and lines the deconstructive drive to Freud's compulsive fort! gesture in Beyond, his lIathetical" writing that takes apart the thesis every time it is about to be posited. And Derrida also suggests that his own operation of deconstruction may be a compulsive drive as well. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the next paragraph, Derrida adds: Freud vott un rapport d'opposition (Entgegensetzung), du moins dans la doctrine d'Hering, entre Ie processus d' assimilation constructrice et Ie processus de dissimilation deconstructrice. Voila qui imposerait une limite a la traduction s1 l'on 3.cceptait de conaiderer que la deconstruction ne s' oppose pas seulement mals travaille autrement (et sans travailler s1 Ie travail est determine comme oppoS'ition). Je 1aisse cette question operer en silence, elle nous attend ailleurs (CP, 286). The vocabulary here is highly suggestive. For what subverts without 284 opposing, what operates in silence is, of course, the death drive. In the analogy with Hering's psychic processes, the project of deconstruction generally, and not just Derrida's p p r o c ~ in this one essay, is character.ized as a drive or a compulsion. "La repetition se legue, Ie legs se repete" (CP, 357); in analyzing Freud's legacy, Derrida becomes part of it; he too contracts a debt. The question that remains is how his autobiographies (in "Envois" as well as "Speculerll) functions to reveal and/or dissimilate his position in the heritage and how his writing, indefinitely suspended between mastery and compulsion, mimes and becomes part of the object it seeks to describe. It is at this point that the question of literature reasserts itself. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Literary Framework Port/Da as Autobiography. Derrida claims that: Au-deta n'est pas_ un exemple de ce qu'on croit conna1tre sous 1e nom d' autobiographie. L' auto- biographique n I est. . pas un espace prealablement ouvert dans lequel 1e grand-pere speculateur raconte une histoire, telle histoire de ce qui lui est advenu nans sa vie. Ce qul!l raconte, c'est l'autobiographie. Le fort:'da iei en cause, comme bistoire particuliere, c'est un;-;utObiographie qui enseigne: toute autobiographie est l' al1er-revenir d'un par exemple celui-ci (CP, 344). 285 There are a number of reasons for taking the anecdote as a paradigm of autobiography in general. In the first place, Ernst's game is a means of making sense of his life, mastering an experience by representing it with signs. This manipulation of signs involves the recognition that language can function in the absence of a referent: by pronouncing the somtd "0-0-0-0" even when he cannot see the spool, the child recognizes this capacity of language. And the sequel to this game extends this recognition to include the absence of As he makes his own reflection disappear, he announces "bebi 0-0-0-0 11 ; that is, he names hi,mself as one who is or may be absent (i. e. dead). In short, the game is a form of auto-affection that, Derrida claims, constitutes the subject. This auto-affection, as we have seen, involves a relation to death and to otherness: it is only through different that something like identity comes into being: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. II se rappel1e Mais on ne peut savoir s1 ce 'lui I peutdire 'moil; et, meme s'i1 disalt 'moi,' quel moi prendrait alars la parole .... L'autobiographique. oblige a reconsiderer toute la topique de I' autos (CP> 343). -- 286 Thus, autobiographies is a means of constituting the self but it involves, at the same time, otherness and others. Watching the child's solitary game, Freud is so captivated that he goes on to repeat it in Beyond, as his own autobiography. Referring to the first game where Ernst throws away all his toys (his collection of toys, Spielzeug), Derrida writes: S'i1 se separe de son Spielzeug comme de lui-meme et en vue de se laisser rassembler, clest qul!l est aussi 1ui- meme un collectif dont Ie reajointement peut donner lieu 11 toute une combinatoire des ensembles. Tous ceux qui jouent ou travaillent a rassemb1er en sont parties prenantes (CP, 331). The dispersal of his toys (of himself) is made possible by the fact that the self is already a "collective. II like the Spielzeug that "rassemble dans un mot" the various toys that Ernst is intent on dispersing. This auto-affection that passes through the other makes it possible for the grandfather to become part of Ernst's "self" and vice versa. The operation of fort/.!1!., then, in whatever form, is the formation of a self that is haunted by its other: it is an autobio- graphics that is always heterographic, always a relation to a genealogy. The self-appropriation involved in coming to consciousness also entails an expropriation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287 Repetition and Aesthetics. A further link between the fort/.2!, game (Ernst's and Freud's) lies in the question of the aesthetic. or literary. For Freud explicitly links aesthetics to repetition and to autobiographies.!!. repetition. After discussing Ernst's game and children's play generally. Freud adds that the artistic play and artistic imitation carried out by adults, which, unlike children's,. are aimed at an audience, do not spare the spectators (for instance, in tragedy) the most painful experiences and can yet be felt by them as highly enjoyable. This is convincing proof that, even under the dominance of the pleasure principle, there are ways and means enough of making what is in itself tmpleasurable into a subject to be recollected and worked over in the mind (XVIII, 17). Thus, for Freud, what is unusual about the literary work is its capacity to produce a yield of pleasure by repeating or reproducing unpleasurable experiences. Repetition seems to produce pleasure in and of itself, despite the unpleasure associated with the experience repeated. Th:1s repetition is not exactly to the pleasure principle, since it too involves a y:Leld of pleasure, but it seems to be independent of the princ:l..ple, operating without regard for the unpleasure encountered along the way. Artistic imitat:1on or repetition seems to slip away from the dominance of the pleasure pr:1nciple. In liThe 'Uncanny, "' a companion essay to Beyond, Freud explains that "the uncanny as it is depicted in literature, in stories and imaginative productions, merits in truth a separate discussion" because "there are many more means of creating uncanny effects in fiction than there are in real life" (XVII, 249). Derr:l.da suggests that literature's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288 capacity to produce such effects is not simply a matter of accumulating unlikely coincidences or disturbing situations, but is a ftmction of the literary form itself. What is most uncanny and 1I1Ost moving in such cases is the literary repetition (a term Derrida prefers to the more conventional "imitation" or "mimesis") of repetition. This capacity also extends to the pleasurable effects produced by the literary work: ''L'flGment de ce qui fait-oeuvre," that is, the literary form, saisit l'esthtttique par Ie PP sans se laieser par elle ressaisir. I1 est plus 'originaire' qu'el1e, 11 en est on peut Ie decrire dans les termes m@mes par lesquels Freud ail1eurs deed t 1 r au-dela. du PP (CP. 364-65). Linking this definition of the aesthetic to the anecdote Freud tells in the second chapter, Derrida argues that the fait-oeuvre is not only the source of pleasure for Ernst in his playful repetition of his mother's departure and return, but that il constitue I'element de la scene d'ecriture, de , I 'oeuvre' inti tulee Au-dell du principe du plaisir, dans ce qu'elle a de plus saisissant et de plus insaislssable (cp, 365). That is why, when Freud includes, among a number of cases where a subject repeatedly f:Lnds himself in the same situation at several points in his life, the example of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, Derrida can write: 'tr.e recours 1 'l'exemple' litteraire ne saurait etre simplement illustratif dans AU-dela " (CP, 364). For what Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Z89 strikes Freud about the story is precisely the repetition of a repeti- tion, that is, the practice that he himself employs in telling the fortI..!!!, story: Ce qu' 11 y a de I plus saisissant I dans ce que Freud appelle un I epas romantique, I ce n' est pas seulement Ie meurtre inconsc.ient, par deux fois, de la bien-aimee dissimulee sous un homme ce n'est pas seulement Ie retour de la voix fantomique de Clorinde; ce n'est pas seulement la repetition unheim1:Lcbe, au-dela du PP, du meurtre de 1 t aimee. Non, ce qu'tl y a de 'l!!!!, saisissant' (ergreifendste), quoi que declare Freud. c I est la repetition (dites s1 vaus voulez 'litteraire' ) de cas repetitions de repetitions
Thus, the structure of this "literary" text is also the structure of Beyond and, notably, of the autobiographical anecdote Freud records in the second chapter. Like the artists he alludes to and like Ernst, Freud is putting on a play, for his readers but also for himself o. And, like the hero of Gerusalemme Liberata, who seems "pursued by a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power" (XVIII, 21), Freud submits to his wri ting as to a force beyond himself 0 Derrida continually refers to the "ventr1loquyll of Freud's writing, its ghostly and demonic character. He thus links the autobiographical aspect of Freud's writing to both the literary or aesthetic and to the repetition compulsion: Freud's autobiographies would be an attempt to master a conflict through repetition as well as a repetition without mastery. Such a hypothesis links the particularly literary nature of autobiography to the various psychic phenomena we have been dealing with throughout this study. The repetition of life experiences in analysis, for instance, .is an aesthetic creation to the extent that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290 the fait-oeuvre produces a yield of pleasure regardless of the unpleasure of the original experience; conversely t the artistic: creation is compulsive inasmuch as it repeats without fully mastering the experience or the repetition. Autobiography is located at the undecidable limit between compulsion and mastery. Derrida's Autobiographies. In the theory of an aesthetic! compulsive repetition characteristic of autobiography t we find a point of entry into Derrida IS "Envois." For the i2!!1.2!. of "Speculer, II the repetition of Freud's gesture in Beyond (itself a repetition of Ernst's game), 1s only one instance of repetition in a book filled with effects of doubling, echoes, and parallels. Each of the four parts of ~ ~ in fact, repeats not only the text or texU that it discusses but also the other essays in the collection. As we have seen, the relation between Freud and Marie Bonaparte, explicated in "Speculer, II is repeated and reversed in ''Le Facteur" as a relation between Lacan and Bonaparte. This, in turn, repeats the situation of the fort/-S!, scene, where Freud's relation to his daughter Sopb1.e reverses into its mirror image, Ernst's relation to his mother. Such effects of repetition and reversal are too numerous and too complex to deal with adequately here. I shall limi,t myself to one such effect: the repetition in IIEnvois" of the autobiographical situation recorded in "Spiculer" and its relation to the theory of autobiography developed there, in both its institutional and literary aspects. If Derrida is repeating Freud repeating Ernst, how does that repetition reflect upon his philosophical project? What links the father of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291 psychoanalysis to the philosopher of deconstruction? What does IIEnvois" reveal ahout Derrida' s heritage and lineage? There is no question that what corresponds to the game that so captivates Freud and that Derrida interprets as a scene of heritage is the post card that Derrida happens upon in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The card, a reproduction of a work by Matthew Paris, depicts the two progenitors of Western philosophy, Socrates and Plato. In what appears to be a reversal of roles, Socrates is seated at a writing desk, a writing instrument in each hand, while a diminutive Plato stands behind him, his body pressed against the high back of Socrates' chair, watching and gesturing as Socr.r:tes prepares to write. In a spectacular example of overinterpretation, Derrida explicates this curious scene through the nearly 300 pages and two years of "Envois." In fact, most of the correspondence with the lover is written on the back of copies of this post card. Derrida encounters the post card with the same fascination and puzzlement that Freud shows when he comes across his grandson 1 s odd behavior: Tu as vu cette carte, l'image au dos de cette carte? Je suis tombe desaus, bier, a la Bodleian (c' est la fameuse bibliotheque d I Oxford). je te raconterai. Je suis tombe en arrih, avec Ie sentiment de 1 'hallucination (il est fou ou quai? 11 s'est trompe de noms!), et d' une reve- lation apocalyptique: Socrate ecrivant, ecrivant devant Platon, je l'avais toujours su, c'etait reste comme Ie negatif d 1 une photographie a developper depuis vingt-cinq siecles --en moi bien sur . Ie reveIateur est la., a mains que je ne sache encore rien dechiffrer de cette image, et c'est en effet Ie plus probable. Soerate, celu! qui eerit --assis, pUe, scribe ou copiste docile, Ie seeretaire de Platon, quoi. II est devant Platon, non, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Platon est derriere lui, plus petit (pourquoi plus petit'?) mais debout:--D'UdOigt tendu 11 aI' air d' indiquer. de de montrer 1a vole au de donner un ordre --ou de dieter, autoritaire, magistral, imperieux. Mechant presque, tu ne trouves pas, et volontairement. Jl en a1 achete tout un stock (CP, 13-14). 292 There are two issues to be considered here: first, the interpretation of the post card, its significance; and second, Derrida I s relation to that interpretation. What is most striking in the scene depicted by Paris 1s that Socrates, the philosopher who did not write, whose spoken words, there- fore, were to have retained their proximity to him, is shewn t."riting, and writing under Plato's direction, recording the dictation of the student who was supposed to have recorded hid words. It thus depicts what Derrida calls the "catastrophe," an originary reversal of speech and writing, father and son, predecessor and successor, testator and heir. Derrida wri tes tha t tout est construit sur la charte protocolaire d'un axiome .. c'est simple, breve, stereotypie apeuree .. : Socrate vient avant Platon, 11 y a entl:e eux --et en general-- un ordre de generation, irreversible sequence d'heritage (cp, 25). This fundamental axiom, which organizes the archives of knowledge and the very notion of history and genealogy, is undermined by the post card from Oxford. The post card, in fact, l:epresents the relation between Plato and Socrates that Derrida had described a number of years earlier in the section of "La Pharmacie de Platon" called "L'Heritage du Pharmakon: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. La Scene de Famille. u Tracing Plato's use of the father/son relationship as a figure for the rapport between a speaker or writer 293 and his words, Derrida links Plato's comments on writing to the role he plays in relation to Socrates, his position as successor, son, and the philosopher who writes down Socrates' spoken words. For Plato, the distinction between speech and writing is the difference between a good, honorable, legitimate son and an orphan or bastard. Writing is the son who has become separated from his father, who can no longer find his father, and who, in his absence, simply repeats the same thing over and over, unable to answer any questions that are posed of him.: Courant les rues, 11 ne sait :meme pas qui 11 est, quel1e est son identite, s'i1 en a une, et un nom, ce1ui de son pere. Il repete la m!me chose 1orsqu'on l'interroge a tous les coins de rue, mais i1 ne sait plus repeter son origine (DIS, 165). But his poor, forsaken orphan can always become a murderer and a usurper: he has it in his power to annihilate his father: Qu'est-ce que Ie pere? .. Le pere est. Le pere est (Ie fils perdu). L'ecriture, Ie fils perdu, ne rspond pas a. cette question, elle (s' )ecrit: (que) Ie pere n'est pas, c'est-a.-dire n'est pas present. Quand elle n'est plus une parole dechue du pere, elle suspend 1a question . 'qu'est-ce que Ie pere?' et la rsponse 'Ie pere est ce qui est.' Alors se produit une avancse qui ne se 1aisse plus penser dans 1 'opposition courante du pere et du fils, de la parole et de I' ecriture (DIS, 169). Since writing can function even in the absence of its father, it can always announce the father' 5 death (his absence) and usurp his place. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294 It is now the father who is lost, a lost son; and the son has become the father of the father. Represented and replaced by his murderous son, the father (present) no more. In the next paragraph, Derrida writes that Ie moment est venu de rappeler que Socrate joue dans les dialogues Ie rale du pere, represente Ie pere ... il est Ie porte-parole du pere. Et Platon eerit a partir de sa mort. Toute l'Ekriture platonicienne --et nous ne parlons pas iei de ce qu I e11e veut dire, de son contenu signifie: la reparation du pere au besoin contre la graphe qui decida est done, lue a partir de Is mort de Socrate, dans la s1 tua tian de 1 T acri ture accusee dans Ie (DIS, 169-70). As the one who writes down Socrates' spoken words, Plato is the bad son (writing) who usurps his s place; his comments on writing refer to his own position as Socrates' scribe. But if Plato is able to usurp the place of the father, it is only because a certain lack allows for the usurpation to take place: Socrates' death and his "sterility," the mortality of his words that otherwise would, die wi th him. Lorsque nous disons que Platon ecrit a. partir de la mort du pere, nous ne pensons pas seulement a tel evenement intitule 'la mort de Socrate' .. mais a'abord a la sterilite de 1a semence socratique abandonnee a el1e seule . Pour en reparer la mort, Platon a transgresse la 10i. II a repete la mort du pere. La transgression de la 10i est d' avance soumise a une loi de la transgression (DIS, 177). Socrates' death and sterility call for the transgression that Plato commits: if Socrates' name is to live on, his words must be written down. But this writing is a usurpation of the name of Socrates: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in filling the absence caused by death, Plato also signs Socrates' death warrant. 295 We begin to understand. why a post card depicting Plato compelling Socrates to write should have such an effect on Derrida. In fact, Derrida suggests that what Socrates is writing under duress is his own death warrant or a testament that makes Plato his sole heir. He even goes so far as to suggest that Plato is performing an anal copulation on Socrates, compelling Socrates to bear his child, but a child conceived "dans Ie dos," in as it were. Thus, Derrida views the post card as the representation of the genealogical reversal that he bad traced in "La Pharmacie de Platou." The question is then: what is Derrida' s role or position in this genealogy? what 1s his relation to the scene of heritage he interprets? We recall that Derrida writes that the sight of Socrates writing in front of Plato "iitait reste comme Ie d'tme photographie a developper depuis vingt-cinq --en mol bien so.r ll (CP, 14, emphasis mine). This image of the photograph waiting for centuries to be developed blurs the distinction between an active, "subjective" interpretation that imposes a meaning, and a passive perception of an object. The impression existed as a negative for centuries, but certain historical circumstances, and, no doubt, certain contingent factors in Derrida's life, were necessary for t:i.e tmage to be "developed." The scene becomes part of Derrida's autobiography, but it is the scene that imposes itself upon him. In some sense, Plato and Socrates are dictating to Derrida his autobiography. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296 At another piJlnt, this curious relationship between Derrida and his predecessors is described in the following terms: "Quand sauront- I1s que Socrate aura eerit sous ma dictee Ie testament qui 1 'institue comme mon legataire universel parmi d' autres" (CP, 102). The first part of the sentence repeats the situation that Derrida traces between Plato and Socrates: it is the son who compels the father to write his will. But in this case, the will declares the father heir to the son, and sale heir among others. Socrates writes a will that names himself as heir to Derrida; Derrida compels his father to write a will that makes him (Derrida) the father' 5 father. The order of generations is constantly reversing itself and it is impossible to say whether Derrida has imposed "his" interpretation on the post card depicting a scene of heritage or whether the post card, sent from Socrates, dictates to Derrida. Women and Derrida. One of the things that Derrida likes about post cards is that on ne sai t pas ce qui est devant au ce qui est derriere, iei au U., pres au loin, le Platon au Ie Socrate, recto au verso. Ni ce qui importe Ie plus, 1 'image au Ie texte, et dans Ie texte, Ie message au la H'l:gende, au l' adresse ; la reversibilite se dechaine, elle devient folle (CP, 17-18). This is not only another instance of the reversals (of generations, of roles) that interest Derrida; it also raises the question of the rela- tion between what one writes and to whom, and what one writes Q., what supports one's writing. In the case of the famous post card, what Derrida writes E!!. is a scene depicting two major figures of Western Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. metaphysics; what he writes are private letters to a (presumably female) lover. 8 Thus, both the post card (a private message that circulates openly) and the postal service (a public institution charged with the t!'ausmission of private correspondence) are figures for the inseparability of the public and the private, the institu- 297 tional and the individual, the metaphysical and the everyday. Nowhere is this relationship more strikingly depicted than in Derrida' s relation to women. As might be expected, this relation repeats a number of the motifs or patterns that Derrida discusses in regard to and We have seen that Freud I s position on women, and the existence of female psychoanalysts, form a detour or fold in what ought to have been a direct line of descent from father to son. Derrida also suggests that this detour has been repressed by a certain idealization of women. This is represented in the events following Sophie's death. Noting Freud's remark that Ernst does not mourn his mother's Derrida writes: Gette chute donnerait a penser qu I on garde mieux une morte: l'idealisation interiorise l' obj et hors d'atteinte pour Ie rival. Sophie, donc, Iii fille, ici mere, est marte, soustraite et rendue a toutes les 'possessions exclusives' (CP:-348). And later, alluding to Lacan's claim to Freud's legacy and the compli- cations posed by Bonaparte's prior claim, Derrida asks: "Qui n'entrera alors en 'possession exclusive,' conune on entre dans la danse au en transe?1I 355). Once Sophie is dead, once her "materiality" has Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298 been reduced to ashes. she can be i.dealized and claimed by all those who were formerly rivals for her attentions. In the same way, Lacan IS insistence on the indivisibility of the letter (the signifier) allows him to claim "exclusive possession" of Freud's insights and to bracket the difficulties of reading and interpreting Freud's texts. In other words, his idealization of the materiality of language allows him to take his place as rightful heir. When we turn to l'Envois, II we find the same idealization of woman, and of the language used to address her, that Derrida criticizes in "Speculer" and "Le Facteur. II Following a conference. Derrida is introduced to a young American student who gives her name as ''Metaphysique.'' Addressing the lover, he writes: J'a1 compris que e'e-tait to1. Tu as toujours ate 'mal mftaphysique, la metaphyaique de ma vie, Ie 'verso' de tout ce que j' ecris (mon dGs1r J 1a parole J 1a presence J 1a 1a 10i, men coeur et men &me, tout ce que- j I aime. et que tu saia avant moil (CP, 212). Although Derr1da's writings, from the very first, have sought to under- mine the metaphysical privilege of voice and presence, the desire for them resurfaces here in an apostrophe to a woman who takes on all the features of the desired object. Like Ayesba for Freud, ''Metaphysique'' is the ideal, unchanging woman. Derrida I s theory of writing and of telecommunication asserts that a destination is always multiple and the letter always divided. Even so, when he writes to his lover, he calls her limon unique destinee" (CP J 28) and underlines the paradox involved in this desire for the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. unique: lIs n'auront de moi que des cartes postales, jamais la vraie lettre, qui t'est reservee uniquement, pas a ton nom. .. .. a to!. .. . .. Tu me diras que cette detestation apparamment meprisante ..... contredit moo culte des cartes postales, 299 et ce que je declare de 1 'impossibilite pour un destinataire unique de jamais s'identifier ....... Et que eela ne s'accorde pas avec Ie fait qu tune lettre a. l'instant meme ou elle a lieu ..... se dlvise, se met en morceaux, tombe en carte pastale. Eh Qul, c'est Iii notre lot tragique, mon deux amour, I' atroce laterie. mais je commence a t' aimer depuis cet impossible (CP, 90) .. Even though he recognizes at a theoretical level that the "truel! letter, the letter bearing truth, can never arrive intact at its destination, Derrida continues to desire such a model of conununication that would exclude all others but the unique; in fact, the very impossibility of attaining what he desires augments the desire. As we have seen, Derrida criticizes Lacan for passing over in silence his debt to Bonaparte and locates Sophie's silence as the condition for Freud's discourse. Of his own silencing of woman, his failure to publish his lover's letters as well as his own, Derrida writes: et si parce que je les aime trap je ne publie pas tes lettres (qui en droit m' appartiennent), on m' accusera de t'effacer, de te taire, de te passer sous silence. S! je les publie, ils m'accuserant de m'approprier, de voler, de violer, de garder l'initiative, d'exploiter Ie corps de la femme, toujours Ie mec, quoi (CP, 247). Such accusations, of course, are not simply what some anonymous "they . " some malicious other, will 'Say; they follow from Derrida' s own theory. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300 and, in fact, Derrida himself directs the same accusations at his rivals. In IISpculer--sur 'Freud, til Derrida traces Freud's incapac:i.ty, following the death of his grandson, to form new ties and his general inability to establish a contract with his lineage or to assume the debt of his ances try. Writing to his lover, Derrida alludes to the nature of their relationship in the same terms: . depuis ce jour au il fut clair que jamais entre nous aucun contrat, aucune dette, aucune garde sous seelle, aucune memoire meme ne nous retiendrait--aucun enfant meme (cp, ). Thus, in his ;:private:: correspondence and in his private affairs, Derrida symptomatically repeats the- very attitudes and behaviors toward woman that he criticizes in Freud and Lacan. All of these elements --the silencing of the ),dealization of language, the refusal of a female lineage-- reappear in the context of Derrida' s discussion of one of the female heirs to deconstruction, Barbara Johnson. As American translator of a number of Derrida t s works, including La like Bonaparte. is a sort of foreign minister or representative. In her The Critical Difference, she names Q.!:h. Derrida and Lacan as her theoretical "frame of reference. "8 The last chapter of this book is devoted to a discussion of Derrida's "Le Facteur" Laean's "Seminaire sur 'La Lettre Volee, "' and Poe's short story. Derrida hears Johnson deliver a version of this chapcer at a conference and writes to his lover concerning it. He quotes Johnson at length, but without ever revealing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. her name: 11 faut pour que tout soit en ordre que 'ma' 'dissemnat1.on' s'l1Srige elle-mime, qu'elle l'ait dGji fait pour que Ie demier mot soit le demier mot S1 j'avai8 insiste encore davantage pour dire qu'il n'y avait pas de maitre mot ou de dern1er mot au de premier mot, a1 j'ava1a insiste davantage (Gtait-ce possible?) pour dire que 'dissmination' Stait lim des mots, parmi taut d t autres, pour entrai.ner au-deli. de tout 'last word,' on m'auratt reprocM d'avoir, prEcisement par mon insistance, reconstitue 1m maitre mot, n'importe lequel. Tout en disant de ac;on I appareument non equivoque' que Ice que veut dire' 'la lettre voIGe,' voire 'en souffrance, I cleat qu'one lettre arrive toujours a destination, Lacan voulait dire en verite ce que j' a1 dit, ce que j'aurai dit, sous Ie nom de dissem.nation. Fallait Ie faire! Quant a moi, tout en parlant en apparenc.e de dissemination, j' aurais reconstitue c.e mot en denier mot et done en destination (CP, 163-64). 301 This impatience approaching exasperation is thus directed at Johnson's efforts to the respective positions of Derrida and Lacan. Derrida recognizes that Johnson's thesis has a certain bearing on his notion of the reversibility of genealogies; he instructs his lover to "illustrate" the post card of Socrates and Plato with a statement from Johnson's article that exchanges the positions of Derrida and Lacan. In passages from Johnson's article that Derrida does Dot quote, however, the rea!Sons for his negative reaction become evident. For Johnson situates Derrida within the family romance of psychoanalysis and shows his interested position in relation to Lacan. We have seen that Derrida accuses Lacan of not loving the mother Bonaparte enough, of sending her!m in an act of revenge. This, of course, identifies Lacan with the older brother Ernst. Derrida, defender of Bonaparte, becomes, then, the mother's son, the younger Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (but so much more clever) b'l'other Heinerle. In fact, there are a number of indications in "Spl!culer" that Beinerle is not only I like 302 Sophie, the death drive of psychoanalysis, but also its rightful heir. Reinerle is a legataire universel et porteur du nom selon l' affect (filiati.on de la communaute assuree par la femme. iei paT la fille 'preferee'j et Ie second petit-fils dott porter, dans certaines c:ommunautes juives, 1e prenom du matemel; tout pourrait etre r'gl' par une 101 judaique) (CP, 355). Thus, in taking the side of the mother Bonaparte, Derrida identifies himself with the favorite son, the brighter child and the one martyred by the vengeful older brother. But Johnson points out that Derrida's position is not quite so innocent, nor so unassailable, as his identification with Heinerle would make it out to be. For Poe's ''The Purloined Letter" is also about the rivalry of two brothers for the mother and Derrida' s place in that story is anything but innocent. In Poe's short story, the inspector Dupin admits that he undertakes the mission in part to settle an account with the minister, who had earlier done him an evil turn. Thus, to seal his act of revenge, Dupin signs the facsimile of the purloined letter that he leaves in the minister's apat:tment with a quotation from Creb1llon: "--Un desse1n s1 funestel Slil n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste." Johnson glosses: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Atreus, whose wife had long ago been seduced by Thyestes, is about to make Thyestes eat (literally) the fruit of that illicit union, his son Pl1sthenes. The avenger's plot may not be worthy of him, says Atreus, but his brother Thyestes deserves ::I.t. What the addressee of the violence gets 1s his own message backwards. 9 In signing h1s deed with a quotation, Dupin takes on the role of vengeful brother and it is his vengefulness that makes him "partie prenante" in the scene of interpretation. 303 Johnson goes on to show that Derrida, like Dupin, undertakes his mission to undermine bis rival, in a vengeful act to settle an old score with Lacan. The ex:l.stence of t.he same kind of prior aggression on Lacan t s part is pod ted by Derrida in a long footnote in his book Positions, in which he outlines what will later develop into ~ de 18 Verite: 'In the texts I have published up to now, the absence of reference to Lacan is indeed almost total. That is justified, not only by the acts of aggression in the form of, or with the intention of, reappropriation which, ever since De la grammatologie appeared in Critique (1965) (and even earlier, I am. told) Lacan has multiplied '10 'rhus, in the Bort of reversal that Derrida objects to in "Envois, It Johnson shows that Derrida is the vengeful brother who wants to get back at Lacan. In the rivalry between Atreus and Thyestes, it is once more a woman (the wife/sister-in-law this time) who is the object and, furthermore, what is involved is the legitimacy of the lineaRe: Thyestes' illegitimate son has a shared parentage with both brothers. As a result, Johnson's argument not only reverses Dt!rrida' s position as the younger, innocent brother Heinerle to that of a vengeful, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304 murderous rival, it also inscribes her position in the family romance. For she, like Thyestes' illegitimate son, is the heir who shares a double parentage (Derrida and Lacan) and, like him, she becomes victim to the wrong(ed) father' 5 act of revenge. When, in "Envois, If Derrlda vents his anger at Johnson, he is once more repeating the story of the purloined letter. When Dupin quotes the passage from Crebillon, the two brothers, husbands and fathers in the original story, become sons: the quotation refers to Dupin and the minister, and their rivalry for the mother I s (the Queen's) attentions. The quotation marks displace the rivalry and the generations are once more reversed. Just as easily, Johnson, the daughter of deconstruction can become Derrida I s mother (just as Plato becomes Socrates' father). In writing on him, she reinvents him, and she places the lineage, the order of generations, in danger. For, in siding with Lacan against Derrida and Bonaparte, she undermines Den-ida I s claim to represent the female lineage of psychoanalysis. Derrida, who wishes to stand among the female heirs, finds himself under assault by his own daughter. His defense is to claim that she has misrepresented him, fabricated a "Derrida" who bears no likeness to the original: "Est-il question de Derrida ou de's 'Derrida' 7" (CP, 163). In fact, this objection to Johnson extends to all of his heirs: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Que faire? Je guis aime mais ils ne me supportent pas. lIs ne supportent pas que je dise quoi que ce soit qu'ils ne puissent 'reverser' d'avance chaque fols que la situation 1 'exige (naturellement, ma 'position,' ma 'place, I mes places, reponses au non-ri!'ponses. etc., font partie, partie seulement de ladite situation et de 'what is at stake here' (CP, 164). 305 But, as in the case of his decision not to publish the lover's letters, Derrida once more projects onto "them" objections that in fact follow from his own theories. For he devotes a great deal of to exploring Freud's position in the structures he describes, insisting on the inevitable reversibility of genealogies, assessing the "stake" involved. In fact everything Dertida has written on the question of influence and the problema tics of reading suggests that there is always only "'s 'Derrida'." Positions. It could be argued that, since "Envois" is a literary rather than a philosophical text, an at least partially fictionalized account and a parody of certain literary conventions, one should not take the narrator's IIconfessions" seriously, nor confuse this narrator with the author and philosopher Jacques Derrida. In other words, "Envois" is staging rather than expressing the desire for presence; it parodies a certain symptomatic relation to women rather than participating in it; and the apparent contradiction involved in Derrida's repetition of the very ills that he analyzes with acuity with regard to Freud and Lacan can be resolved by positing an ironic distance between Derrida and the I-narrator of "Envois." This argument is not altogether false, but it assumes, for one thing, that the "author" Derrida manipulates all the strings without Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306 being manipulated in his tum. It overlooks, that is, the compulsion for autobiography that we were led to posit, and the undecidable limit between repetition as compulsion and repetition as mastery. It assumes the fullness of Derrida's intentions and his ultimate control over what he writes .11 It 1s more in keeping with Derrida' s theoretical framework to recognize that, as he writes of Nietzsche I s self-contradictory attitudes toward women, s1 on ne peut assimiler --entre eux d' abord- les aphorismes sur la. femme et Ie reate --c'est aassi que Nietzsche nly voyait pas tres clair et que tel aveugle- ment r'gulier, rytmne, avec lequel on n 'en finfra jamai.s, a lieu dans Ie texte (EP, 82). The fictionalized, parodic play of "Envo1s" does not indicate Derrida's "maf.tr1se inf:l:n1e" (EP, 81); rather, "la parodie suppo.se toujours quelque part tIne na5:vet', adossee a un inconscient, et 1e vertige d lune non-maitrise, une perte de connaissance lf (EP, 81). It is in part Lacan' s na5:vete on this point that Derrida criticizes in "Le Facteur de 1s Verite": Lacan assumes too eaSily that the textual effects of Poe's short story can be accounted for by the authorls intentions. Even while reading liThe Purloined Letter" as a powerful critique of interpretive assumptions, especially those held by the psychoanalytic institution, Derrida argues that Poe' s intentions do not organize that critique; rather, Poe himself occupies an interested position in the scene depicted by liThe Purloined Letter." Such a reading may elucidate the function that "Envois" performs within Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307 the context of Derrida I s critique of psychoanalysis and the role that it assigns him. For both liThe Purloined Letter" and IIEnvois" are literary texts that explore the role of the subject within the struc- ture he At the beginning of "Le Facteur, II De ,:,ida asks: Que se passe-t-il dans Ie dechiffrement psychanalytique d'un texte quand celui-ci, Ie dEkhiffre, s I explique deja Quand 11 en dit plus long que Ie dechiffrant . Et surtout quand i1 inscrit de surcroit en lui la scene du dechiffrement? (CP, 442) "The Purloined Letter," a story about resolving an enigma, discovering the location of a letter, uncovering a hidden truth, is, for that reason, a story interpretation. It includes as part of its story its own scene of interpretation, and it is that scene that Lacan has excluded or misread in his own interpretation, in order to make claims for the privileged position of psychoanalytic truth. Lacan divides Poels story into two triangles, the second being a repetition of the first or primal scene. Each triangle is made up of three persons with different access to knowledge or truth. Lacan characterizes this difference as three kinds of gazes (regards): Le premier est d'un regard qui ne voit rien: clest le Roi et clest la police. Le second d'un regard qui voit que le premier ne voit rien et se leurre dlen voir couvert ce qu'il cache: clest la Reine, puis c' es t Ie minis tre. Le troisieme qui de ces deux regards voit qulils laissent ce qui est il cacher a decouvert pour qui voudra s'en emparer: c'est Ie ministre, et clest Dupin enfin (quoted in CP, 464). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308 In the first scene, the queen tries to bide a compromising letter from the king who has entered her chambers unexpectedly. She does in fact conea! it from him. (thus he sees nothing) but her efforts attract the attention of the minister. Before her eyes, he exchanges the letter for another and confiscates the compromising one. Fearful of being discovered by the king, the queen can do nothing but look on in silence. The minister uses the letter to blackmail the queen: it thus becomes imperative to get the letter back from him. But after many months of searching his premises, the police are still unable to l'<)cate the letter: like the king in the first scene, they see nothing. The inspector Dupin, however, visits the minister and concludes that the letter in question is hanging in a letter-holder from the mantelpiece. In a second visit, he exchanges the letter for a facsimile he has fashioned, and confiscates the original for himself. Since the minister. in the privileged position of "seeing all" in the first scene, becomes Dupin's dupe in the second (thus occupying the queen's original position) it is clear that only Dupin succeeds in seeing all from a privileged, unchallenged posi tioD. Derrida argues that Lacan maintains the privilege of Dupin's position in order to identify with him; or rather, Lacan splits Dupin into a "good" and a "bad" psychoanalyst and then identifies himself with the former while placing his colleagues in the position of the "bad" Dupin. Lacan writes that Dupin Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. est done bien partie prenante dans la triade inter- subjective, et comme tel dans la position mediane qu'ont occupee precedemment la Reine et Ie Ministre. Va-t-il en s'y montrant superieur, nous reveler en ~ m temps les intentions c!e l' auteur'? (quoted in CP, 481). 309 As Derrida points out, the allusion to the author' 5 intentions implies that Poe is in the position of a "maitrise generale, sa superiorite au regard des triangles mis en scene . etant representable par la superiorite d'un acteur, it savoir Dupin" (CP, 481). By positing the ultimate mastery of the author, Laean can also take bis place: !INcus, c'est desormais Freud, Poe, un des deux Dupin et moi,n (CP, 478) Laean would be saying. In this way he achieves a "double benefice!!: first, he IIsait voir ce que personne n I a vu" (CP I 479-80) I like the omniscient Dupin; and second, he can "denoncer la naivete de la communaute analytique, If saying "vous-psychanalystes, VallS vous leurrez au moment precis ou, cOIlDlle Dupin, vous vous croyez les maitres ll (CP, 480). Lacan's strategy, however, not only makes it necessary to suspend the question of Dupin's superiority and to split him into a good and bad psychoanalyst; it also means reductively limiting Poe's short story to the two triangles and ignoring its "frame. II For the three subjects of Lacan's triangles are supplemented by a fourth, the narrator who tells the tale. "A manquer la position du narrateur, son engagement dans Ie contenu de ce qulil semble raconter, on omet tout ce qui de 1a scene d'ecriture deborde les deux triangles" (CP, 511). In. this, intermediate position between the author and his characters, the narrator interprets and interpolates for the reader. Derrida traces Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310 this narrator's interest in what he narrates, bis identification with Dupin, his desire to possess the same rare book, and his financial debt to the inspector and his family. He concludes: dans [cette] economie des lors que 1e narrateur est mis en scene par une fonction qui est bien celle du capital et du desir, aucune neutralisation n'est possible .. Ce n'est pas seulement Dupin, mais 1e narrateur qui est 'partie prenante' (CP, 517). Even the narrator, who, in appearance, sees the triangle from the outside, has an interested position in the scene. The interpreter is part of the scene he interprets. To characterize the IIcomplexe intersubjectif" of the two triangu- lar scenes, Lacan uses the analogy of three ostriches "dont 1e second se croirait revetu d'invisibilite, du fait que Ie premier aurait sa tete enfoncee dans Ie sable, cependant qu'il laisserait un lui plumer tranquillem.ent Ie derriere" (quoted in CP, 464). Derrida adds that il n'y a que des autruches, personne n'evite de se laisser plumer, et plus on est Ie maitre, plus on presente son derriere. Ce sera done Ie cas de quiconque s'identifie ii Dupin (CP, 481). A few pages later, Derrida hints that the prospect of presenting one's behind to be plucked may involve an erotic element: Dupin, Ie lucide, n'a pu l'etre qu'a entrer dans Ie circuit jusqu'A y occuper toutes les places, y eompris, sans Ie savoir, celles du Roi et de la Police. . Et 'se montrer superieur,' pour lui. c' etai t repeter Ie manege sans pouvoir regarder derriere. Ce qui ne Ie orivait pas forcement de Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. plaisir au moment ou un -autre garde alars la plume en main (CP, 483). The plume, of course, is the pen that another holds, either the pen that interprets one's writings or simply, the force of writing that one's own band can never control. But a plume is also a feather. 311 ostrich 1 S tailfeather that another grasps in order to pluck out. This suggests that the revealing of what one cannot see, always part of entering the circuit of writing and interpretation, may produce a yield of pleasure. Surrendering one's privileged position serves the desire to exhibit. Derrida's reading of "The Purloined Letter," then, demonstrates that interpretation always proceeds from an interested position within a structure that the interpreter cannot master completely. He insists that the author Poe does not direct this tale from the outside, but must himself enter into the circuit that he describes. That is why, despite Derrida' s hesitation in acc.epting the assumptions, if not the of psychobiographical he finds Marie Bonaparte's analysis of Poe's unconscious closer to his own interests than Lacan's reading, which ultimately centers the meaning of the story in Poe's conscious intentions. 12 The author too must enter the circuit of writing. The image of the ostrich offering his behind to be plucked, which functions as a figure for the position of the interpreter in the structure he interprets, brings to mind once more the post card of Socrates and Plato and all that Derrida writes regarding Plato's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312 position behind Socrates. In fact, the motif of the behind or the back, the ~ or the dos, recurs persistently throughout IIEnvoisll; Derrida even suggests that it is the only thing that counts in his preface. Discussing the possibility of a secret or coded language hidden in published texts, he writes: Suppose qu'a la fin d'une lecture, une des voix du livre te murmure quelque chose du genre. .: tout est connote en do, 11 n'y a que lea dos qui comptent, revoyez toute la scansion (pas les da comme dans fort/da ou derrida, mais aussi lea do lesplus trainants,comme derriere les rideaux), afors 11 faut tout reprendre . c'eat un livre de plus (CP, 86-87). We saw 1n our discussion of Glas that IIderriere lea rideaux ll is an anagram for Derrida's signature, or rather, for his father's proper name. This anagram, like the various signatures that Genet disperses ~ h r o u h o u t his texts, both undermines the convention of the signature with its assumption of the author's mastery over what he writes, and attempts to reappropriate that mastery, to sign the text an infinite number of times. At this point in IIEnvois. 1I Derrida links this autobiographies to the question of the dos and the derriere, that is, to the vulnerable position that the interpreter, like the ostrich, occupies in a structure. He thus suggests that his autobiographies in IIEnvois" is an effort to reveal his position. The allusion to the anagram "do" takes the form. of a "suppose que .. ": a hundred pages later, this "what if II is confirmed. Having decided to publish the private letters that he has been writing to his lover as the preface to his book on Freud, he tries to reassure her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313 that he will be revealing nothing, that she will not even recognize herself in what he publishes. He writes that "avant .tout 11 s'ag1t de toumer Ie dos. De leur tourn.er Ie doe en fe1gnant de leur adresser la parole et de les prendre a temoin ll (CPt 192); ''bref 11 n'y aura que du dos" (CP, 202). At first glance, turning one's bac.k seems to be a way of excluding t.'le reader; by writing a text that appears literary. that plays with the conventions of fiction and autobiography, that makes contradictory statements about its referentiality and that tmde:rmines tbe whole notion of authenticity, Derrida would reveal nothing, would simply trick or confuse his readers. Thus, turning his back would be the equivalent of another method he employs to exclude the reader, keep bis secrets to himself: "Je peux toujours dire 'ce n'est pas moi fI' (CPt 255). Given the context of La Carte Postale, and especially, given his comments on Lacan's ostriches, the passage takes on another meaning: in turning his back, Derrida reveals his behind. The gesture is both political and erotic: it is important to remember that Derrida emphasizes the pleasure involved in having one's behind plucked. No doubt Derrida' s autobiographies undermines his privileged position by revealing his rivalry with Lacan, his contradictory attitudes toward women, his place in an institutional structure and in a genealogy (as both heir and testator). At the same time, however, these revelations serve the desire to exhibit, the desire for autobiography. That is why lice livre serait d'une perversite polymorphe" (CPt 202) and why he does not hesitate to remind us that turning his back to his readers is a "position tres amoureuse, n'oublie pasl! (CP, 192). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314 CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION I began this study by bracketing the problem of defining auto- biography proposing instead to explore the relation between IIwhat we recognize as autobiography" and Freud I s notions of screen memory, Trauerarbeit, and so forth. That strategy goes against a major current of autobiography criticism which is, in fact, concerned with identifying the specificity of the genre and distinguishing it from the other genres that it resembles. At the same time, I have s s u m e ~ that we share a certain notion of autobiography even as I have sought to problematize that notion. Such a strategy calls for some explanation. Philippe Lejeune has formalized the modern reader's conception of autobiography, which he adopts as his working definition: Recit retrospectif en prose qu'une personne reelle fait de sa propre existence, 10rsqu'el1e met l'accent sur sa vie individuelle, en particulier sur 1 'histoire de sa personnali te ,1 Lejeune goes on to discuss such issues as the relation between author, narrator, and main character, the question of the signature, and the definition of "personne reelle." It is clear that these elements are also those that I have taken as pertinent to autobiography. But, whereas Lejeune chooses text within the literary canon and attempts to demonstrate how they conform to that definition, I have chosen texts outside the canon and have shown how they call into question that definition. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. We recall that Derrida defines literature as lila transformation de son nom propre, rebus, en choses, en nom de choses. 1I This suggests that Lejeune and those like him who are o n ~ r n e d with defining the genre, misunderstand the peculiar relationship between the subject "autobiography" and its predicates. In the case of a literary genre, then, the terms used to describe it are simply the elements that the genre takes as its subject matter, works through 315 and transforms. Thus, autobiography would be that literary genre whose subj ect is the self, the relation of life to writing and to narrative, of the signature to the author, and so on. This means that no particular text would ~ the definition of autobiography, but that each text would take it as its object of inql.li"t'Y. This suggests, of course, that literature contains, or rather enacts, its own theory. That. raises a further issue: if, in fact, every autobiography involves the undermining of autobiography as a genre, if every autobiographical text enacts its own theory, why choose theoretical texts that lie outside the literary canon in order to demonstrate that thesis? It should be clear by now that the literary canon does not cover the entire field of IIliterature, II and that literature, far from being a realm apart, is a part of every realm. What is most striking about Derrida' s writings is not only that he locates the aesthetic in an activity as fundamental as a child's game, but that in his critique of the institutional power of psychoanalysis, he directs his attention to two aspects of language generally aSSOciated with literature: the primacy of form and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316 question of aesthetic effect. If the reate inanalyse d'un inconscient is to become readable, it is through the careful examination of the text's formal features, which Derrida views as symptomatic of a di or a desire. What links Freud's autobiographies to the theoretical content of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, is the of his text that mimes his grandson's game. It is in the form of Freud's texts that he reveals his place in the structures he describes and it is in the form of Derrida's texts that he too reveals hi:; position. It follows that formalism. so often viewed as opposed to sociological or ideology criticism, is in fact a powerful example of it. The other face of form as symptom or compulsion is the notion of aesthetics as mastery. The desire to make sense of one's life is a drive to master and to produce order, to repeat in a controlled way. The relation between this effort at mastery and the effect produced on the reader is far from clear: Derrida writes that the mimetic form of the episode in Beyond "a dii jouer un role" in the fascination it exercises on the reader, but he does not say what that role is. In both and "Envois, II the models are seduction and trickery, which suggests deception but also a certain compliance on the part of the reader. In any case, by way of a detour through psychoanalytic and philosophical texts, the literary and the autobiographical emerge as central to the institutional discourses of power. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX Abbreviations of Derrlda's Works Cited in the Text (For full reference, see bibliography.) CP La Carte Postale de Socrate a Freud et Au-dela DIS La Dissemination EC "Entre Crochets" ED L'Ecriture at 18 Difference EP Eperons: Les Styles, de Nietzsche FH Les Fins de l'Hormne (ed. Phillippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy) GL Glas The letters "L" and fiR" following page reference --designate the left and right columns respectively. GR De 18 Gramma tologie JA "Ja ou Ie faux-bond" L1 "Limited Inc a b ell MP Marges de 18 Philosophie VP La Voix et Ie Phenomene 317 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES 1. Avrom Fleishman, Figures of Autobiography (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: Univ. of California Press, 1983), pp. 24-25. 318 2. Derrida has analyzed this persistent but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to distinguish between a good and a bad repetition in a number of places. See, for example, La Voix Bt Ie Phenomene, pp. 53-66 and La Dissemination, pp. 153-63 and passim. 3. Ernest Jones, The Life ":lnd Works of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Bocks, 1953-57). 4. Marie Balmary, L'Homme aux Statues (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1979) 5. See especially Luee Irigaray, Speculum de I' Auture Femme (Paris: Minutt, 1974) and Sarah Kofman, L'Enigme de 18 Femme (Paris: Galilee, 1980). 6. "Most autobiographies are inspired by a creative, and therefore fictional, impulse to select only those events and experiences in the writer's life that go to build up an integrated pattern. II Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957), p. 307. The best discussion of the literary qualities of The Interpretation of Dreams is still Stanley Edgar Hyman, The Tangled Bank (New York: Atheneum., 1962). Hyman, however. does not raise the question of the relation between the literary and the scientific project. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7. Michael Ryan, Marxism and Deeonstruction (Baltimore and London: The ,Johnr;l Hopkins Univ. Press, 1982), p. 34. 319 1. Two recent texts have exploited the aesehetic aspects of Freud's case histories by transforming them into literary texts: Hlene Cixous' Portrait de Dora (Paris: Des Femmes, 1976) stages the dialogue between Freud and his hysterical patient as a play; Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok's Cryptonymie: Le Verbier de l'Homme aWl: Loups (Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1976) takes the elements of the Wolfman case history and constructs a fiction that illustrates the authors' psychoanalytic theories of mourning end incorporation. For a discussion of the role of narrative in treating patients, see Roy Schafer I "Narration in the Psychoanalytic Dialogue, II Critical Inquiry, 7, no. 1 (Autumn 1980), 29-53. A more extens:l.ve, but ultimately disappointing study of the subject is Donald P. Spence IS Narrative Truth and Historical Truth: Meaning and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Co., 1982). 2. Throughout the text, references to Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, trans. and ed. James Strachey (London: 'the Hogarth Press, 1953-74), 24 vol., will be designated by volume number (in Roman numerals) followed by page number. Where the German is given, the reference is to the Gesammelte Werke, ed. Anna Freud, 18 vol. (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1961-68) unless otherwise noted. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 320 3. Jacques Derrida, La Carte Postale de Socrate a Freud et Au-dela (Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1980), 324 and passim. I will discuss Derrida's use of this notion in reference to Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle in a later chapter. 4. For narrative as the revelation of a secret, see John Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979); for narrative as contract, see Roland Barthes, S/Z (Paris: Edition du Seu11. 1970). 95-97 and passim. 5. Sigmund Freud, Three Case Histories, ed. and intro. Philip Rieff (New York: Collier Books, c. 1963), 69n. 6. For a discussion of the relation between Derrida I 5 notion of writing seus rature and Freud's theory of memory and see Derrida, "Freud et la Scene de l'Ecriture," L'Ecriture et la Difference (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967). 7. This crucial concept of transference and its relation to the work of analysis will be discussed in the following section. 8. "Raten" means "installments" and this bridge leads the patient to associate rats with money and to coin "a regular rat currenc.y" (X, 213). "Spie1ratte," literally "play-rat," is colloquial German for "gambler" and thus alludes to his father's gambling debt. 9. The distinction that Freud draws here between "true" memories and "paramnesias," fictive constructions that fill in the gap of memory, is called into question in Freud's (earlier) essay, "Screen Memories." See below, 69 sq. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321 10. Although Freud habitually uses the masculine pronoun to refer to "the hysteric lf and grants the existence of male hysterics, every published case of hysteria concerns a female patient. Further- more, Dora's gender is not inconsequential to the outcome of the analysis. I have retained Freud t s usage in the quotations but have substituted the more accurate "she" in my own text. 11. In the 1I0r iginal Record ll of the Rat Man case, Freud makes it clear that his theory of repression extends to the forgetting of the details of an analysis. Noting that he cannot recall one bit of information that the Rat Man had given him, and is uncertain about another, Freud comments, liMy uncertainty and forgetfulness seem to be intimately connected. . (They were forgotten owing to complexes of my own.)11 (X, 263-64). 12. Toril Moi's excellent essay, "Representation of Patriarchy: Sexuality and Epistemology in Freud's Dora;" Feminist Review, 9 (October 1981), pp. 80-93, discusses the fragmented form of Freud's text and its relation to his countertransference in a rather different con- text. See also Jacques Lacan, IIIntervention sur le Transfert" in Ecrits (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966), 215-26; Jane Gallop, "Keys to Dora" in The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Ithaca, York: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982), 156-64; and the special issue of ~ 13, no. 1 (Spring 1983) devoted to Freud's Dora. This issue also contains a bibliography of works on Dora. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322 Chapter III 1. Ernest Jones, The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud, I, p. 324. 2. Jones, I, p. 35l. 3. Jones, I, p. 320. 4. The Standard Edition mistakenly translates Kontiguitats- assoziation as "associated by continuity." 5. "Dream-work," "work of mourning,lI "revision ll or IIreworking" and "working through," respectively. 6. For a discussion along similar lines of Freud's use of the term Entstellung (literally "de-presentation"), see Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud W..inneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. 32 and passim. 7. Freud, The Origins of Psycho-Analysis (London: Imago Publishing Co., 1954), p. 313. 8. The quotation from Virgil appears on the title page of Montaigne's copy of the 1588 edition of ~ . 9. This, of course, is not the way to interpret dreams according to Freud's method of interpretation. A dream may be quoted (or "redreamt"), however, and its c.riginal meaning altered in the process. See, for example, V, 509. 10. I shall consider Derrida' s discussion of the death knell - - ~ ) and its relation to citationality in a later chapter. 11. Freud never questions the fundamental assumption that normal mourning involves no manic phase (a term he uses interchangeably with IIphase of triumph") even though he speaks of reality "gaining the day" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323 (den Sieg behlUt) i.e., triumphing. For a fine recent study of mourning, see Nicolas Abraham and. Maria Torok, L'Ecorce et le Noyau (Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1978) as well as Crxptonvmie: Le Verbier de l'Bomme aux Loups, and Derrida's "Fors," which serves as an intro- duction to both works. 12. Freud, Origins, p. 207. 13. Freud, Origins, p. 213. 14. For further discussion of the motif of micturition in 1:!!!. . Interpretation of Dreams, see Hyman, The Tangled Bank, pp. 327-28 and David Willbern, "Freud and the Inter-penetration of Dreams," ~ 9, No. 1 (1979), pp. 98-110. 15. See also Kofman's discussion of this dream in L'Enigme de la Femme, pp. 23-27. 16. "To our surprise, we find the child aut1 the child's impulse stUI living on in the dream" (IV, 191). 17. The syllable lIab" is a signifying element in German, a separable prefix indicating "motion away from." The point that the unity nab" is meaningful while its individual elements are not is lost in translation. 18. H. Rider Haggard, She (London: Octopus Books, 1979), p. 252. 19. Haggard, p. 382. 20. Haggard, p. 362. 21. Jones, III, p. 21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324 1. All references to Derrida will be cited in the text. For a list of abbreviations used to indicate individual works t see appendix. 2. At another point in his critique of Husserl, Derrida shows that the material component of the sign is inseparable from its identity and in fact constitutes its ideality. Thus, in the later essay, "Signature Evenement Contexte," he uses the term. "iterability" to suggest that the repetition of the sign involves both identity difference. For more detailed discussion of a number of the issues raised in this chapter, see the second chapter of Jonathan Culler, .Q!!. Deconstruction (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1983). 3. Philippe Lejeune, Le Pacte Autobiographigue (Paris; Seuil, 1975), p. 15. 4. Lejeune, pp. 25-26. 5. Lejeune, p. 23. 6. Lejeune, p. 23. 7. Lejeune, p. 26. 8. Lejeune, p. 22. 9. Lejeune, pp. 20-21. 10. Lejeune, p. 34. 11. Lejeune, p. 34. 12. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962-75), pp. 5-6. 13. Austin, p. 101. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325 14. In her "Translator's Introduction" to Derrida IS Dissemination, Barbara Johnson rightly points out that "what Rousseau's text tells us 1s that our very relation to 'reality' already functions like a text. Rousseau's account of his life is not only itself a text, but it is a text that speaks only about the textuality of life,lI (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, p. xiv). 1. For Derrirla I s appraisal of the relation between Glas and his earlier texts, see Ee, 102-03. The first pages of Glas, (left-hand column) examine the assumptions behind positing an "early" and a "late" period in a writer's career. See GL, 11-12-:L; and 66-67-L. 2. For a discussion of r:he "generalized etishismfl of Glas, Sarah Kofman, "Ca cloche" in Leg Fins de 1 'Homme, ed. Philippe Lacoue- Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy (Paris: Galilee, 1981), pp. 89-116. See also below, 190-200. Kofman' s essay has influenced my thinking on several points. 3. On the question of the intertext in Glas, see Michael Riffaterre, liLa Trace de l'Intertexte," La Pensee, 215 (1980), pp. 5-9 and especially, Paul de Man's critique of same in "Hypogram and Inscription: Michael Riffaterre's Poetics of Reading,1I Diacritics, 11, No.4 (1981), pp. 27-29. 4. I have placed a slash mark in quotations from Glas to indicate the intervention of a judas that is not quoted. 5. See Derrida's "La Mythologie MP, 247-324. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326 6. In fact, according to Freud, girls as well as boys believe that women have been castrated (XIX, 252-53). Derrida grafts Nietzsche I s comments on women's scepticism onto Freud's theory of female sexuality in order to provide himself an escape route from phallogocentrism (Le., that of becoming woman) not provided by Freud alone. 7. Jean Genet, Journal du Valeur (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), pp. 54-56. B. In "Ca Cloche," Kofman argues that Derrida has failed to recognize that the fetish substitutes not for the man IS penis but for the fantasmal woman I s phallus and is thus less grounded in phallo- centrism than Derrida leads us to believe. See nCa Cloche," pp. 101-03 and Derrida's reply to this criticism, p. 113. 9. See Michel Foucault, L'Archeologie du Savoir (Paris: 1969), p. 138 and passim. 10. Genet, p. 10. 11. For an early Derridean analysis of the relation between the proper name and the law, see also GR, 157-73. 12. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Saint Genet, Vol. I of c,enet's Completes (Paris: Gallimard, 1952-68), pp. 16-17. 13. Genet, Journal, pp. 46-47. 14. Genet, Journal, p. 29. 15. Genet, Journal, p. 29. 16. Genet, Journal, p. 30. 17. Genet, Oeuvres ComE1etes, IV, pp. 22-23. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327 18. for two recent studies that underline aspects of Montaigne I 6 Essais (and of the self-portrait as genre) similar to those I have been discussing in Glas, see Michel Beaujour, Miroirs d 'Encre (Paris: SeuiI, 1980) and Antoine Compagnon, La Seconde Main (Paris: Seull, 1979). 1. For the notion of the "exorbitant" reading and its necessity, see GR., pp. 226-34. 2. Derrida fails to note that the child utters the word "da" and not simply "a-a-a-a-." leads him to problematize Freud's inter- pretation of the child I s utterance more than Freud's text would seem to warrant. See below, 277. 3. The "analyst ll in "Screen Memories" alludes to his "patient's" earlier contact with psychoanalysis and his success in overcoming a train phobia by that means (III, 309-10). 4. See once more Kofman and Irigaray. 5. For an interesting discussion of the relation of the sounds "fort-da" to "Freud," see Patrick Mahony, Freud as a Writer (New York: International Univ. Press, 1983), p. 53. 6. In Marxism and Deconstruction, published two Yl;lars after Carte Postale, Michael Ryan still insists that "marxism and deconstruc- tion can be articulated, but in one iundamental way they cannot be related. Deconstruction a philosophical interrogation of some of the major concepts of philosophy. Marxism, in contrast, is not a phi1osophyll (p. 1). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328 7. There is a certain amount of evidence, however, that the lover is male and that Derrida is female. It is probably best to view this as the acting out of all possible sexual IIpositions": see below, 305 sq. 8. Barbara Johnson, The Critical Difference (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1980), p. 146. 9. Johnson, p. 117. 10. Johnson, p. 118, her emphasis. 11. This may be taken as a response to Barbara Johnson's claim concerning Derrida's "misreading" of Lacan that !I'the pattern is too interesting not to be deliberate'" (Paul de Man, quoted in Johnson, p. 125). Freud recognized that the most lIinteresting" patterns are those that stem from the unconscious. 12. See, for example, CP, 475-76 and 483-84. Chapter VII 1. e j e u n e ~ p. 14. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, Nicolas and Maria Torok. Cryptonymie: La Verbier de I'Homme aox Loups. Introd. Jacques Derrida. Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1976. L'Ecorce et Ie Nayau. Paris: 1978. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things rith Words. Ed. J. O. Urmson and Marina Spisa. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962-75. Balmary, Marie. L'Homme aux Statues: Freud et 18 Fatite Cachee du pere. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1979. Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Paris: Seui!, 1970. Beaujour, Michel. Miroirs d'Encre: Rhetorique de l'Aute-Portrait. Paris: Seuil, 1980. Berezdivin, Ruben. "Gloves: Inside-Out." Research in Phenomenology, 8 (1978), pp. 111-26. Special issue devoted to Derrida. Includes bibliography. Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. London, Oxford, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973. et a1. Deconstruction and Criticism. New York: The Seabury Press, 1979. Bruss, Elizabeth. Autobiographical Acts: The Changing Situation of a Literary Genre. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1976. Cixous, Helene and Catherine CHimento La Jeune Nee. Paris: Union Genera1e, 1975. Cixous, Helene. Portrait de Dora. Paris: Des Femmes, 1976. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330 Compagnon, Antoine. La Seconde Main ou Ie Travail de 18 Citation. Paris: Seuil, 1979. Crawford, Claudia. "She. II Sub-stance, 29 (1981), pp. 83-96. Cuddihy, John Marray. The Ordeal of Civility: Freud. Marx. Levi-Strauss and the Jewish Struggle with Modernity. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. Ithaca: Cornell Dniv. Press, 1982. de Man, Pcml. Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche. Rilke. and Proust. New Haven and Lanuon: Yale Dniv. Press, 1979. "Autobiography as De-facement." MLN, 94 1 9 7 9 ) ~ pp. 919-30. Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. New York: Oxford Dniv. Press, 1971. --------. "Hypo gram and Inscription: Michael Riffaterre's Poetics of Reading." ~ , 11, No.4 (198l)? pp. 17-35. Derrida, Jacques. La Carte Posta1e de Socrate a Freud et Au-Dela .. Paris: Aubier-F1ammarion, 1980. La Dissemination. Paris: Seuil? 1972. L 'Ecriture et 1a Difference. Paris: Seuil, 1967. "Entre Crochets. II Digraphe, 8 (1976), pp. 97-114. ----------. Eperons: Les Styles de Nietzsche. Introd. Stefano Agosti. Paris: Flammarion, 1978. "Fors: Les Mots Angles de Nicolas Abraham et Maria Torok." In Cryptonymie: L9 Verbier de 1'Homme aux Loups. By Nicolas Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331 Abraham and Maria Torok. Paris: Aubler-Flammarion, 1976, pp. 7-73. Glas. Paris: Galilee, 1974. De la Grammatologie. Paris: Minuit, 1967. "Ja, ou Ie faux-bond. II Digraphe, 11 (1977), pp. 83-121. "Limited Inc abc ,II Glyph, 2 (supplement) (1977), pp. 1-81. liLa Loi du Genre. 1I .<l!1E!!. 7 (1980), pp. 176-201. Merges de la Philosophie. Paris: Minuit, 1972. IIMe--Psychoanalys!s: An Introduction to I The Shell and the Kernel' by Nicolas Abraham. 1I Diacritics, 9, No.1 (1979), pp. 4-12. Special issue devoted to Freud. IIPas 1.11 Gramma, 3-4 (1976), pp. 111-125. Positions: Entretiens avec Henri Ronse, Julia Kristeva, Jean-Louis Houdebine. Guy Scarpetta. Paris: Minuit, 1972. "Signeponge." Digraphe, 8 (1976) pp. 17-39. "Signeponge. 1I In Ponge Inventeur et Classique, Colloque de Cerisy. Paris: Union Genera1e, 1977, pp. 115-51- La Verite en Peinture. Paris: F1ammarion, 1978. La Voix et le Phenomene: Introduction au Prob1eme du Signe dans 1a Phenomenologie de Husser!' Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967. Felman, Shoshana, ed. Literature and Psychoana1ysis--The Question of Reading: Otherwise. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1977-80. Finas, Lucette et a1. Ecarts: Quatre Essais a propos de Jacques Derrida. Paris: Fayard, 1973. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 332 Fleishman, Avrom. Figures of Autobiography: The Language of Self- Writing in Victorian and Modern England. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: Univ. of California Press, 1983. Foucault, Michel. LtArcheologie du Savoir. Paris: Gallimard, 1969. ------, ed. Moi, Pierre Riviere? Ayant Egorge ma Mere. ma Soeur et mOD Frere . : Un Cas de Parricide au xrx e Siikle. Paris: Gallimard/Julliard, 1973. La Volante de Savoir. Vol. I of Histoire de 18 SexualitiL Paris: Gallimard, 1976. Freud, Sigmund. Aus den Anfiingen der Psychoanalyse: Briefe an Wilhelm Fliess. Abhandlungen und Notizen aus den Jahren 1887-1902. Ed. Marie Bonap,arte, Anna Freud, Ernst Kris. London: Imago Publishing Co 1954. Gesammelte Werke. Ed. Anna Freud. 18 vols. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1961-68. The Origins of Psycho-Analysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes 1887-1902. Ed. Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, Ernst Kris. Trans. Eric Mosbacher and James Strachey. London: Imago Publishing Co., 1954. --------. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Wo't'ks of Sigmund Freud. Trans. James Strachey. 24 vols. London: Hogarth Press, 1966-74. Three Case Histories. Ed. and introd. Philip Rieff. New York: Collier Books, 1963. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 333 Northrop. The Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957. Gallop, Jane. The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982. Genet, Jean. Journal du Valeur. Paris: Gallimard, 1949. Oeuvres Comple.tes. 5 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1952- 68. Haggard, H. Rider. She. 1887; rpt. In King Solomon's Mines/She/Allan Quatermain. London: Octopus Books, 1979. Harari, Josue V., ed. Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post- Structuralist Criticism. New York: Cornell Univ. Press, 1976. Hartman, Geoffrey R., ed. Psychoanalysis and the Question of the Text. Baltimore and London: The Johns Univ. Press, 1978. ----------. Saving" the Text: Literature/Derrida/Philosophy. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1981. Hegel, G. W. F. Phanomenologie des Geistes. 1807; rpt. Vol. Vof Gesammelte Werke. Ed. Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Reinhard Beede. Hamburg: Mainer, 1980. ----------. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford, New York, Toronto, Melbourne: Oxford Vniv. Press, 1977. Hertz, Neil. "Dora's Secrets, Freud's Techniques. n 13, No.1 (1983), pp. 65-76. Special issue devoted to Freud's Dora. Includes bibliography. Holland, Norman. "Unity Identity Text Self." PMLA, 90 (1975), pp. 813-22. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hyman, Stanley Edgar. The Tangled Bank: Darwin. Marx, Frazer. and Freud as Imaginative Writers. New York: Atheneum, 1962. 334 Irigaray, Luce. Speculum de l'Autre Femme. Paris: Minuit, 1974. Johnson, Barbara. The Critical Difference: Essays in the Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1980. ---------, "Translator's Introduction." Dissemination. By Jacques Derrida. Chicago; Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982. Jones, Ernest. The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud. 3 vals. New York: Basic Books, 1953-57. Kermode, John Frank. The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979. Kofman, Sarah. LfEnfance de l'Art: Une Interpretation de L'Esthetigue Freudienne. Paris: Payot, 1970. ----------. L'Enigme de la Femme: La Femme dans les Textes de Freud. Paris: Galilee, 1980. ----------. Quatre Romans Ana1ytigues. Paris: Galilee, 1973. Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe and Jean-Luc Nancy, eds. Les Fins de 1 'Homme: A Partir du Travail de Jacques Derrida. Paris: Galilee, 198!. Lang, Candace. "Autobiography in the Aftermath of Romanticism." DiacritiCS, 12, No.4 (1982), pp. 2-16. Laplanche, Jean. Vie et Mort en Psychanalyse. Paris: Flanunarion, 1970. ---------- and J.-B. Pontalis. Vocabulaire de la Psychana1yse. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lejeune, Philippe. La Pacte Autobiographigue. Paris: SeuU, 1975. Lemaire, Anika. Jacques Lacan. Bruxelles: Pierre Mardaga, 1977. Lentricchia, Frank. After the New Criticism. Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980. 335 Levesque, Claude and Christie V. McDonald, eds. L'Oreille de l'Autre --Otobiographies t Transferts. Traductions: Textes et Debats avec Jacques Derrida. Montreal: VLB Editeur, 1982. Levi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropigues. Paris: Libraire PIon, 1955. Lose11e, Andrea. IIFreud/Derrida as FortI!!! and the Repetitive Eponym." MLN, 97 (1982), pp. 1180-85. Macksey, Richard and Eugenio Donato, eds. The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1970-72. Mahony, Patrick. Freud as a Writer. New York: International Univ. Press, 1982. Mehlman, Jeffrey. A Structural Study of Autobiography: Proust. Leiris, Sartre, Levi-Strauss. Ithaca and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1974. Moi, Tori1. "Representation of Patriarchy: Sexuality and Epistemology in Freud's Dora. 1I Feminist Review, 9 (1981), pp. 80-93. Norris, Christopher. Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Metheun and Co., 1982. Olney, James, ed. Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critica1. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Parker, Andrew. "Taking Sides (On History): Derrida Re-Marx. 1I Diacritics, 11, No.3 (1981), pp. 57-73. 336 Pascal, Roy. Design and Truth in Autobiography. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960. Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Purloined Letter. II In The Annotated Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. and introd. Stephen Peithman. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1981, pp. 299-313. Riffaterre, Michael. liLa Trace de l'Intertexte." La Pensee, 215 (1980), pp. 4-18. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Les Confessions. 1782; rpt. Ed. J. Voisine. Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964. Emile au de l'Education. 1762; rpt. Introd. Michel Launay. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966. EBBa! sur 1 'Origtne des Langages. 1755; rpt. Aubin: Bibliothe.que de Graphe, 1969. Ryan, Michael. Marxism and Deconstruction: A Critical Articulation. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1982. Schafer, Roy. "Narration in the Psychoanalytic. Dialogue." Critical Inquiry, 7, No. 1 (1980), pp. 29-53. Searle, John R. "The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse." NLH, 6 (1975), pp. 319-32. "Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida." GlyPh, 1 (1976), pp. 198-208. Shapiro, Stephen A. "The Dark Continent of Literature: Autobiography." Comparative Literature Studies, 5, No.4 (1968), pp. 421-54. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337 Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. On the Margins of Discourse: The Relation of Literature to Language. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1979. Spence, Donald P. Narrative Truth and Historical Truth: Mean:f.ng and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis. New York and London: W. W. Norton and Co., 1982. Spivak, Gayatri.. "Glas-Piece: A Compte-Rendu." ~ 7, No.3 (1977). pp. 22-43. ---. IITranslator's Preface. 1I In Of Grammatology. By Jacques Derrida. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1976, pp. i-xc. Starobinsld.., Jean. Lea Mots sous les Mots: Lea Anagrammes de Ferdinand de Saus8ure. Paris: Gal1imard, 1971- Sturrock, John, ed. Structuralism and Since: From Levi-Strauss to ~ . Londou: Oxford Un1v. Press, 1979. Ulmer, Gregory. "The Post-Age." ~ 11, No. 3 (1981), pp. 39-56. Weber, Samuel. The Legend of Freud. Minneapolis: Un1v. of Minnesota Press, 1982. White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth- Century Europe. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1973. Wi11bern, David. "Freud and the Inter-penetration of Dreams." ~ 9, No.1 (1979), pp. 98-110.